And here mote I tell how they rode on the wind, The witch before and the Warren behind; How they passed in a twinkling the haunts of man, And the proud pagodas of Kubla Khan; How they peeped at the planets like Allan-a-roon, And supped on green cheese with the man in the moon; Or listed the dulcimer’s tremulous notes, Or the voice of the wind through the azure that floats, Till pillar and palace and arching sky Rung to the mingled melody. * * * * * Away, away, through the thunder-cloud, Where tempest and ruin sit laughing aloud; Away, away, through the fields of air, Where the night-wind howls to the falling star; This amiable couple have past, and now They gain the swart regions of darkness and woe. O’Warren beheld them, and shrunk with awe, Like a client held fast in the grasp of law, Then hymned to the Virgin for aid and for pity, A highly correct and devotional ditty: “Miserere Maria,” he cried in despair, While the bullet-nosed bogle drew back at the prayer, For Mary, sweet Mary, hath power to fright, And palsy the souls of the dæmons of night; “Miserere Maria,” he bellowed again, And the worricow dropt her eye-tooth at the strain, But spite of her teeth, she eschewed complaint, Till troubled in spirit, and cowed and faint, She collared the tradesman with horrible yell, Then plunged with him head over heels into hell. Oh, how its wild waves bellowed and boomed!! Oh, how its vapors the air perfumed!! As Warren with timid and stifled breath, And followed by old Mrs. Life-in-death, Moved to where Satan Reclined alone, In the silence of thought on his ebon throne. * * * * * Proudly he strode to his palace gate, Which the witch and the Warren approached in state, But paused at the threshold as onward they came, And thus, with words of fever and flame, The tradesman addressed, “Your name, Sir, is known As a vendor of _sables_ wide over the town; But in hell with proviso this praise we must mix, For though brilliant your blacking, the water of Styx Is blacker by far, and can throw, as it suits, A handsomer gloss o’er our shoes and our boots.”―― Answered the Warren, with choleric eye, “Oh, king of the cock-tailed incubi! The sneer of a fiend to your puffs you may fix, But if, what is worse, you assert that your Styx Surpasses my blacking, (’twas clear he was vexed), By Jove! you will ne’er stick at any thing next. I have dandies who laud me at Paine’s and Almack’s, Despite Day and Martin, those emulous quacks, And they all in one spirit of concord agree, That my blacking is better than any black sea Which flows thro’ your paltry Avernus, I wis,”―― “Pshaw,” Satan replied, “I’ll be damned if it is.”