Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.

Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.

I call'd the devil, and he came,
And with wonder his form did I closely scan;
He read more

I call'd the devil, and he came,
And with wonder his form did I closely scan;
He is not ugly, and is not lame,
But really a handsome and charming man.
A man in the prime of life is the devil,
Obliging, a man of the world, and civil;
A diplomatist too, well skill'd in debate,
He talks quite glibly of church and state.

Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her own shape read more

Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her own shape how lovely; saw
And pined his loss.

Where God has his church the Devil will have his chapel

Where God has his church the Devil will have his chapel

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.

Incens'd with indignation Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burn'd,
That fires the length of Ophiucus read more

Incens'd with indignation Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burn'd,
That fires the length of Ophiucus huge
In th' artic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.

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.

The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil, and the devil hath power
T' assume read more

The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil, and the devil hath power
T' assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me.

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.