XVI

First Jezebel came—­no need of paint,
Or dressing, to make her charming;
For the blood of the old prophetical race
Had heighten’d the natural flush of her face
To a pitch ’bove rouge or carmine.

XVII

Semiramis there low tendered herself,
With all Babel for a dowry: 
With Helen, the flower and the bane of Greece—­
And bloody Medea next offer’d her fleece,
That was of Hell the Houri.

XVIII

Clytemnestra, with Joan of Naples, put in;
Cleopatra, by Anthony quicken’d;
Jocasta, that married where she should not,
Came hand in hand with the Daughters of Lot;
Till the Devil was fairly sicken’d.

XIX

For the Devil himself, a dev’l as he is,
Disapproves unequal matches. 
“O Mother,” he cried, “dispatch them hence! 
No Spirit—­I speak it without offence—­
Shall have me in her hatches.”

XX

With a wave of her wand they all were gone! 
And now came out the slaughter: 
“’Tis none of these that can serve my turn;
For a wife of flesh and blood I burn—­
I’m in love with a Taylor’s Daughter.

XXI

“’Tis she must heal the wounds that she made,
’Tis she must be my physician. 
O parent mild, stand not my foe”—­
For his mother had whisper’d something low
About “matching beneath his condition.”—­

XXII

“And then we must get paternal consent,
Or an unblest match may vex ye”—­
“Her father is dead; I fetched him away. 
In the midst of his goose, last Michaelmas day—­
He died of an apoplexy.

XXIII

“His daughter is fair, and an only heir—­
With her I long to tether—­
He has left her his hell, and all that he had;
The estates are contiguous, and I shall be mad,
’Till we lay our two Hells together.”

XXIV

“But how do you know the fair maid’s mind?”—­
Quoth he, “Her loss was but recent;
And I could not speak my mind you know,
Just when I was fetching her father below—­
It would have been hardly decent.

XXV

“But a leer from her eye, where Cupids lie,
Of love gave proof apparent;
And, from something she dropp’d, I shrewdly ween’d,
In her heart she judged, that a living Fiend
Was better than a dead Parent.

XXVI

“But the time is short; and suitors may come,
While I stand here reporting;
Then make your son a bit of a Beau,
And give me your blessing, before I go
To the other world a courting.”

XXVII

        “But what will you do with your horns, my son? 
          And that tail—­fair maids will mock it—­”
        “My tail I will dock—­and as for the horn,
        Like husbands above I think no scorn
          To carry it in my pocket.”

XXVIII

“But what will you do with your feet, my son?”
“Here are stockings fairly woven: 
My hoofs I will hide in silken hose;
And cinnamon-sweet are my pettitoes—­
Because, you know, they are cloven.”