The bane of all that dread the Devil!

The bane of all that dread the Devil!

What is got over the devil's back is spent under his belly.

What is got over the devil's back is spent under his belly.

If the devil does not exist, and man has therefore created him, he has created him in his own image read more

If the devil does not exist, and man has therefore created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness

The infernal serpent; he it was whose guile,
Stirr'd up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother read more

The infernal serpent; he it was whose guile,
Stirr'd up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind.

Black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; read more

Black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand.

Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence.

Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than read more

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

Satan; so call him now, his former name
Is heard no more in heaven.

Satan; so call him now, his former name
Is heard no more in heaven.

And bid the devil take the hin'most.

And bid the devil take the hin'most.