by Byron
435
From our sun to its earth, as we can tell
How much time it takes up, even to a second,
For every ray that travels to dispel
The fogs of London, through which, dimly beacon’d,
The weathercocks are gilt some thrice a year,
440
If that the summer is not too severe: –
LVI
I say that I can tell – ’twas half a minute:
I know the solar beams take up more time
Ere, pack’d up for their journey, they begin it;
But then their telegraph is less sublime,
445
And if they ran a race, they would not win it
‘Gainst Satan’s couriers bound for their own clime.
The sun takes up some years for every ray
To reach its goal — the devil not half a day.
LV II
Upon the verge of space, about the size
450
Of half-a-crown, a little speck appear’d
(I’ve seen a something like it in the skies
In the Ægean, ere a squall); it near’d,
And, growing bigger, took another guise;
Like an aerial ship it tack’d, and steer’d,
455
Or was steer’d (I am doubtful of the grammar
Of the last phrase, which makes the stanza stammer; –
LVIII
But take your choice); and then it grew a cloud;
And so it was – a cloud of witnesses.
But such a cloud! No land e’er saw a crowd
460
Of locusts numerous as the heavens saw these;
They shadow’d with their myriads space; their loud
And varied cries were like those of wild geese
(If nations may be liken’d to a goose),
And realised the phrase of ‘hell broke loose.’
LIX
465
Here crash’d a sturdy oath of stout John Bull,
Who damn’d away his eyes as heretofore:
There Paddy brogued ‘By Jasus!’ – ‘What’s your wull?’
The temperate Scot exclaim’d: the French ghost swore
In certain terms I shan’n’t translate in full,
470
As the first coachman will; and ’midst the roar
The voice of Jonathan was heard to express,
‘Our president is going to war, I guess.’
LX
Besides there were the Spaniard, Dutch, and Dane;
In short, an universal shoal of shades,
475
From Otaheite’s isle to Salisbury Plain,
Of all climes and professions, years and trades,
Ready to swear against the good king’s reign,
Bitter as clubs in cards are against spades:
All summon’d by this grand ‘subpoena,’ to
480
Try if kings mayn’t be damn’d like me or you.
LXI
When Michael saw this host, he first grew pale,
As angels can; next, like Italian twilight,
He turn’d all colours – as a peacock’s tail,
Or sunset streaming through a Gothic skylight
485
In some old abbey, or a trout not stale,
Or distant lightning on the horizon by night,
Or a fresh rainbow, or a grand review
Of thirty regiments in red, green, and blue.
LXII
Then he address’d himself to Satan: ‘Why –
490
My good old friend, for such I deem you, though
Our different parties make us fight so shy,
I ne’er mistake you for a personal foe;
Our difference is political, and I
Trust that, whatever may occur below,
495
You know my great respect for you: and this
Makes me regret whate’er you do amiss –
LXIII
‘Why, my dear Lucifer, would you abuse
My call for witnesses? I did not mean
That you should half of earth and hell produce;
500
’Tis even superfluous, since two honest, clean,
True testimonies are enough: we lose
Our time, nay, our eternity, between
The accusation and defence: if we
Hear both, ’twill stretch our immortality.’
LXIV
505
Satan replied, ‘To me the matter is
Indifferent, in a personal point of view:
I can have fifty better souls than this
With far less trouble than we have gone through
Already; and I merely argued his
510
Late majesty of Britain’s case with you
Upon a point of form: you may dispose
Of him; I’ve kings enough below, God knows!’
LXV
Thus spoke the Demon (late call’d ‘multifaced’
By multo-scribbling Southey). ‘Then we’ll call
515
One or two persons of the myriads placed
Around our congress, and dispense with all
The rest,’ quoth Michael: ‘Who may be so graced
As to speak first? there’s choice enough – who shall
It be?’ Then Satan answer’d, ‘There are many;
520
But you may choose Jack Wilkes as well as any.’
LXVI
A merry, cock-eyed, curious-looking sprite
Upon the instant started from the throng,
Dress’d in a fashion now forgotten quite;
For all the fashions of the flesh stick long
525
By people in the next world; where unite
All the costumes since Adam’s, right or wrong,
From Eve’s fig-leaf down to the petticoat,
Almost as scanty, of days less remote.
LXVII
The spirit look’d around upon the crowds
530
Assembled, and exclaim’d, ‘My friends of all
The spheres, we shall catch cold amongst these clouds;
So let’s to business: why this general call?
If those are freeholders I see in shrouds,
And ’tis for an election that they bawl,
535
Behold a candidate with unturn’d coat!
Saint Peter, may I count upon your vote?’
LXVIII
‘Sir,’ replied Michael, ‘you mistake; these things
Are of a former life, and what we do
Above is more august; to judge of kings
540
Is the tribunal met: so now you know.’
‘Then I presume those gentlemen with wings,’
Said Wilkes, ‘are cherubs; and that soul below
Looks much like George the Third, but to my mind
A good deal older – Bless me! is he blind?’
LXIX
545
‘He is what you behold him, and his doom
Depends upon his deeds,’ the Angel said.
‘If you have aught to arraign in him, the tomb
Gives license to the humblest beggar’s head
To lift itself against the loftiest.’ – ‘Some,’
550
Said Wilkes, ‘don’t wait to see them laid in lead,
For such a liberty – and I, for one,
Have told them what I thought beneath the sun.’
LXX
‘Above the sun repeat, then, what thou hast
To urge against him,’ said the Archangel. ‘Why,’
555
Replied the spirit, ‘since old scores are past,
Must I turn evidence? In faith, not I.
Besides, I beat him hollow at the last,
With all his Lords and Commons: in the sky
I don’t like ripping up old stori
es, since
560
His conduct was but natural in a prince.
LXXI
‘Foolish, no doubt, and wicked, to oppress
A poor unlucky devil without a shilling;
But then I blame the man himself much less
Than Bute and Grafton, and shall be unwilling
565
To see him punish’d here for their excess,
Since they were both damn’d long ago, and still in
Their place below: for me, I have forgiven,
And vote his “habeas corpus” into heaven.’
LXXII
‘Wilkes,’ said the Devil, ‘I understand all this;
570
You turn’d to half a courtier ere you died,
And seem to think it would not be amiss
To grow a whole one on the other side
Of Charon’s ferry; you forget that his
Reign is concluded; whatsoe’er betide,
575
He won’t be sovereign more: you’ve lost your labour,
For at the best he will but be your neighbour.
LXXIII
‘However, I knew what to think of it,
When I beheld you in your jesting way
Flitting and whispering round about the spit
580
Where Belial, upon duty for the day,
With Fox’s lard was basting William Pitt,
His pupil; I knew what to think, I say:
That fellow even in hell breeds farther ills;
I’ll have him gagg’d – ’twas one of his own bills.
LXXIV
585
‘Call Junius!’ From the crowd a shadow stalk’d,
And at the name there was a general squeeze,
So that the very ghosts no longer walk’d
In comfort, at their own aerial ease,
But were all ramm’d, and jamm’d (but to be balk’d,
590
As we shall see), and jostled hands and knees,
Like wind compress’d and pent within a bladder,
Or like a human colic, which is sadder.
LXXV
The shadow came — a tall, thin, grey-hair’d figure,
That look’d as it had been a shade on earth;
595
Quick in its motions, with an air of vigour,
But nought to mark its breeding or its birth:
Now it wax’d little, then again grew bigger,
With now an air of gloom, or savage mirth;
But as you gazed upon its features, they
600
Changed every instant – to what, none could say.
LXXVI
The more intently the ghosts gazed, the less
Could they distinguish whose the features were;
The Devil himself seem’d puzzled even to guess;
They varied like a dream – now here, now there;
605
And several people swore from out the press,
They knew him perfectly; and one could swear
He was his father: upon which another
Was sure he was his mother’s cousin’s brother:
LXXVII
Another, that he was a duke, or knight,
610
An orator, a lawyer, or a priest,
A nabob, a man-midwife; but the wight
Mysterious changed his countenance at least
As oft as they their minds: though in full sight
He stood, the puzzle only was increased;
615
The man was a phantasmagoria in
Himself – he was so volatile and thin.
LXXVIII
The moment that you had pronounced him one,
Presto! his face changed, and he was another,
And when that change was hardly well put on,
620
It varied, till I don’t think his own mother
(If that he had a mother) would her son
Have known, he shifted so from one to t’other;
Till guessing from a pleasure grew a task,
At this epistolary ‘Iron Mask.’
LXXIX
625
For sometimes he like Cerberus would seem –
‘Three gentlemen at once’ (as sagely says
Good Mrs Malaprop); then you might deem
That he was not even one; now many rays
Were flashing round him; and now a thick steam
630
Hid him from sight — like fogs on London days:
Now Burke, now Tooke, he grew to people’s fancies,
And certes often like Sir Philip Francis.
LXXX
I’ve an hypothesis – ’tis quite my own;
I never let it out till now, for fear
635
Of doing people harm about the throne,
And injuring some minister or peer,
On whom the stigma might perhaps be blown:
It is – my gentle public, lend thine ear!
’Tis, that what Junius we are wont to call
640
Was really, truly, nobody at all.
LXXXI
I don’t see wherefore letters should not be
Written without hands, since we daily view
Them written without heads; and books, we see,
Are fill’d as well without the latter too:
645
And really till we fix on somebody
For certain sure to claim them as his due,
Their author, like the Niger’s mouth, will bother
The world to say if there be mouth or author.
LXXXII
‘And who and what art thou?’ the Archangel said.
650
‘For that you may consult my title-page,’
Replied this mighty shadow of a shade:
‘If I have kept my secret half an age,
I scarce shall tell it now.’ – ‘Canst thou upbraid,’
Continued Michael, ‘George Rex, or allege
655
Aught further?’ Junius answer’d, ‘You had better
First ask him for his answer to my letter:
LXXXIII
‘My charges upon record will outlast
The brass of both his epitaph and tomb.’
‘Repent’st thou not,’ said Michael, ’of some past
660
Exaggeration? something which may doom
Thyself if false, as him if true? Thou wast
Too bitter – is it not so? – in thy gloom
Of passion?’ – ‘Passion!’ cried the phantom dim,
‘I loved my country, and I hated him.
LXXXIV
665
‘What I have written, I have written: let
The rest be on his head or mine!’ So spoke
Old ‘Nominis Umbra;’ and while speaking yet,
Away he melted in celestial smoke.
Then Satan said to Michael, ‘Don’t forget
670
To call George Washington, and John Horne Tooke,
And Franklin;’ – but at this time there was heard
A cry for room, though not a phantom stirr’d.
LXXXV
At length with jostling, elbowing, and the aid
Of cherubim appointed to that post,
675
The devil Asmodeus to the circle made
His way, and look’d as if his journey cost
Some trouble. When his burden down he laid,
‘What’s this?’ cried Michael; ‘why, ’tis not a ghost?’
‘I know it,’ quoth the incubus; ‘but he
680
Shall be one, if you leave the affair to me.
LXXXVI
‘Confound the renegado! I have sprain’d
My left wing, he’s so heavy; one would think
Some of his works about his neck were chain’d.
But to the point; while hovering o’er the brink<
br />
685
Of Skiddaw (where as usual it still rain’d),
I saw a taper, far below me, wink,
And stooping, caught this fellow at a libel –
No less on history than the Holy Bible.
LXXXVII
‘The former is the devil’s scripture, and
690
The latter yours, good Michael; so the affair
Belongs to all of us, you understand.
I snatch’d him up just as you see him there,
And brought him off for sentence out of hand:
I’ve scarcely been ten minutes in the air –
695
At least a quarter it can hardly be:
I dare say that his wife is still at tea.’
LXXXVIII
Here Satan said, ‘I know this man of old,
And have expected him for some time here;
A sillier fellow you will scarce behold,
700
Or more conceited in his petty sphere:
But surely it was not worth while to fold
Such trash below your wing, Asmodeus dear:
We had the poor wretch safe (without being bored
With carriage) coming of his own accord.
LXXXIX
705
‘But since he’s here, let’s see what he has done.’
‘Done!’ cried Asmodeus, ‘he anticipates
The very business you’re now upon,
And scribbles as if head clerk to the Fates.
Who knows to what his ribaldry may run,
710
When such an ass as this, like Balaam’s, prates?’
‘Let’s hear,’ quoth Michael, ‘what he has to say;
You know we’re bound to that in every way.’
XC
Now the bard, glad to get an audience, which
By no means often was his case below,
715
Began to cough, and hawk, and hem, and pitch
His voice into that awful note of woe
To all unhappy hearers within reach
Of poets when the tide of rhyme’s in flow;
But stuck fast with his first hexameter,
720
Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir.
XCI
But ere the spavin’d dactyls could be spurr’d
Into recitative, in great dismay
Both cherubim and seraphim were heard
To murmur loudly through their long array;
725
And Michael rose ere he could get a word
Of all his founder’d verses under way,
And cried, ‘For God’s sake stop, my friend! ’twere best –
Non Di, non homines — you know the rest.’
XCII
A general bustle spread throughout the throng,
730
Which seem’d to hold all verse in detestation;
The angels had of course enough of song
When upon service; and the generation
Of ghosts had heard too much in life, not long
Before, to profit by a new occasion;
735
The monarch, mute till then, exclaim’d, ‘What! what!
