Semiramis there low tendered herself,
With all Babel for a dowry:
With Helen, the flower and the bane of Greece—
And bloody Medea next offer'd her fleece,
That was of Hell the Houri.
XVIII
Clytemnestra, with Joan of Naples, put in;
Cleopatra, by Anthony quicken'd;
Jocasta, that married where she should not,
Came hand in hand with the Daughters of Lot;
Till the Devil was fairly sicken'd.
XIX
For the Devil himself, a dev'l as he is,
Disapproves unequal matches.
"O Mother," he cried, "dispatch them hence!
No Spirit—I speak it without offence—
Shall have me in her hatches."
XX
With a wave of her wand they all were gone!
And now came out the slaughter:
"'Tis none of these that can serve my turn;
For a wife of flesh and blood I burn—
I'm in love with a Taylor's Daughter.
XXI
"'Tis she must heal the wounds that she made,
'Tis she must be my physician.
O parent mild, stand not my foe"—
For his mother had whisper'd something low
About "matching beneath his condition."—