St Anthony’s Temptations

St Anthony’s Temptations
1162

St Anthong sat on a lowly stool
And a book was in his hand:
Never Als eves from its page he tock
Either to left or right to lock
But with steadfast soul, as was his rule,
The holy page he scanned

“We will woo” said the Imp, “St Anthony’s e
Off from his holy book:
We will go to him all in strange disgule
And trase him with laughter, whoops, and er
That he upon us may lock”

The devil was in the best humor that day
That ever his highness was in;
And that was why he sent out his imps to play
And he furnished them torches to light their
Nor stinted them incense to burn as they may
Sulphur and pitch and resin

So they came to the saint in a motley crew,
A heterogeneous rout;
There were Imps of every shape and hue
And some looked black and some looked blue
And they passed and varied before the view
And twisted themselves about:
And had they exhibited thus to you
I think you’d have felt in a bit of a stew- Or so should myself, I doubt

There were some with feathers and some
scales:
Sonie had no heads, and some had talls,
And some had claws like tron nalis:
And some had combs and heaks like birds,
And yet like Jays could utter words

Some rode on skeleton beasts, arrayed
In gold and velvet stun
With rich tiaras on the head,
Like kings and queens among the dead;
Walle face bridle-hand displayed,
In hue and substance seemed to cope
With maggots in a microscope,
And their thin lips, as white as soap,
Were colder than enough

And spiders liig from the ceiling hung
From every crick and nook;
They had a cratty, ugly gulse
And looked at the saint with their eight eyes
And all that malice could devise
of evil to the good and wise
Seemed welling from their looks

Beetles and glow-worms crawled about,
And toads did squat demure;
Frora holes in the wainscoting mice peeped out,
Or a siy old rat with his whiskered snout;
And forty feet, a full span long
Danced in and out in an endless throng:
There ne’er has been such extravagant rout,
From that time to this I am sure,

But the good St Anthony kept his eyes
Fixed on the holy book;
From it they did not sink nor rise
For sigis for laughter shouts nor cries,
Lould win away his look

A qualat map sat in an earthen pot
In a Wiig bellied earthen pot:
Through holes in the bottom ils legs outshot
And hown in the sides his arms hud gut
And his head came out through the mouth, God wor
A comical sight to see

And he drummed on his belly so fair and round,
On his belly so round and fair:
And it gave forth a rumbling sound
‘Twixt a mailed bell and a growing hound,
A comteal sound to hear
And he sat on the age of a table drak
And drununed it with his heels:
And he looked as strange and no picturesque
As the figures we set in an arabesque,
Haif hidden in flowers all painted in fresque,
In Gothic vaulted cells

Then he whooped and hawed, and winkeu grinned
And hie pyes stood out with gice;
And he said there words, and sung his song
And his legs and arms, with their double prons,
Keeping thee with his tune as it galloped slenk
Still on the pot and table dinned
As birth to his song gave her

“Old Tony my bay, shut up your book
And learn to be merry and may
like a bat in his clolstered nook,
You sit like a hat
Like a round shouldered fool of an owl you lookt
But straighten your back from its bouby crook
And more sociable be, I pray,
Let us see you laugh, let us hear you sing:
Take a lesson from me, old boy!
Remember that life has a fleeting wing
And then comes Death, that stern old king
So we’d better be sure of joy”

But the good St Anthony kept his eyes
Upon his holy beek!
He heard that song with a laugh arise
But he knew that the Imp had a naughty guise,
And he did not care to look

Another imp came in a masquerade
Most like a monk’s attire
But of living bats his cowl was made
Their wings stitched together with spider thread
And round and about him they fluttered and played,
And his eyes shot out from their misty shade
Long parallel bars of fire

And his loose teeth chattered like clanking bones
When the gibbet-tree sways in the blast:
And, with gurgling shakes and stified groans,
He mocked the good St Anthony’s tones
As he muttered his prayer full biast ary of heads was hung by his wide-

A rosary of heads was hung by his side-
Oh, gaunt looking beads were ther!
And still, when the good saint dropped a bead
He dropped a tooth; and he took good heed
To rattle his string, and the bones replied, play
Like a rattlesnake’s tall at play

But the good St Anthony kept his eyes
Upon the holy hook:
He heard that mock of groans and sighs
And he knew the thing had an evil guise,
And he did not dare to look

Another Imp came with a trumpet snout
That was mouth and nose in one;
It had stops like a flute, as you never may doubt
Where his long lean fingers capered about
As he twanged hi pasal melodies out
In quaver, and shake, and run

And his hand moved forward and backward stiil
On his long and snaky neck
As he bent his energies all to fill
His noisy tube with wind and skill
And he sneezed his octaves out until
‘Twas well-nigh ready to break

And close to St Anthony’s ear he came,
And piped his musle in:
And the shrill sound went through the good saint’s frame
With a smart and a sting, like a shred of flame,
Or a bee in the ear-which is much the same
And he shivered with the din

But the wood St Anthony bent his eyes Upon his holy book
He heard that snout with its gimlet efle
And he kaew that the imp had an evil guise
And he did not dare to look

A thing with horny eyes was there,
With horny eyes like the dead;
And its long, sharp nose was all of horn,
And its bony cheeks of flesh was shoon
And its cars were like thin cases torn
From feet of kine, and its jaws were bare,
And fish bones grew Instead of hair,
Upon the skinless head

Its body was of thin birdy bones,
Bound round with parchment skin
And when was struck, the hollow tones
That circled round like drum dull greans
Bespoke a vold within

Its arm was ilke a pegerck’s log
And the clawe were like a bird’
But the creep that went like a blast of plague,
To loose the live flesh from the bones,
And to wake the good saint’s Inward groans,
As It clawed his cheek and pulled his hair,
And pressed on his eyes in their beating lair,
Cannot be told in words

But the good St Anthony kept his eyes
Still on the holy book
He felt the clam on his brow arise,
And he knew that the thing had a horrid guise
And he did not dare to look

An imp came then like a skeleton from Out of a charnel vault:
Some clingings of meat had been left by the worms,
Some tendons and strings on his legs and arms
And his laws with gristle were black and deformed,
But his teeth were as white as salt

And he grinned full many a lifeless grin,
And he rattled his tall:
His skull was decked with gill and in,
And a spike of bone was on his chin
And his batlike ears were large and thin
And his eyes were the eyes of a shall

He took his stand at the good saint’s back,
And on tiptoe stood a spare:
Forward he bent, all rotten-black
And he sank again on his heel, good lack!
And the good saint uttered some ghostly groans,
For the head was caged in the gaunt rib bones,
A horrible embrace!
And the skull hung o’er with an elvisit pry,
And cooked down its india rubber eye
To gaze upon his face

Yet the good St Anthony sunk his eyes
Deep in the holy book;
He felt the bones, and so was wise
To know that the thing had a thastly galse,
And he did not dare to luck

Last came an imp how unitke the rest!
A beautiful female form
And the volee was like nituste, that sleep oppressed
Sinks on some er crading And relieved him with a mild del breast
For the yellow lamp inster searched his sight
That was weak with the miats of arm

Bevt the mood St Anthony bowled his eyes
Over the holy bouk
Ho ho at the corners They ‘man to fire,
For he know the thing had a lovely gulus
And he could not chooan but look

There are many mans devils that walk this world,
Devils Inrge and devils smalli
Devlin no menger and devils so stout,
Devils with horns and devils without:
Sly devils that
Hold devtis that carry them quite unfurledi
Mark devils and devtls that brawi
Serious devils and
Impa for laughing deviln churches and unus for for revels,
Devils uncouth and devils polite; Devila binck and devlis white
Devils foolish and devils devils wise,
But a laughing woman, with two bright eyes, Is the worst devil of all