THE RASH CONJURER[399:1]

Strong spirit-bidding sounds!
With deep and hollow voice,
'Twixt Hope and Dread,
Seven Times I said
Iohva Mitzoveh 5
Vohoeen![399:2]
And up came an imp in the shape of a
Pea-hen!
I saw, I doubted,
And seven times spouted 10
Johva Mitzoveh
Yahóevohāen!
When Anti-Christ starting up, butting
and bāing,
In the shape of a mischievous curly 15
black Lamb—
With a vast flock of Devils behind
and beside,
And before 'em their Shepherdess
Lucifer's Dam, 20
Riding astride
On an old black Ram,
[[400]]With Tartary stirrups, knees up to her chin.
And a sleek chrysom imp to her Dugs muzzled in,—
'Gee-up, my old Belzy! (she cried, 25
As she sung to her suckling cub)
Trit-a-trot, trot! we'll go far and wide
Trot, Ram-Devil! Trot! Belzebub!'
Her petticoat fine was of scarlet Brocade,
And soft in her lap her Baby she lay'd 30
With his pretty Nubs of Horns a-
sprouting,
And his pretty little Tail all curly-twirly—
St. Dunstan! and this comes of spouting—
Of Devils what a Hurly-Burly! 35
'Behold we are up! what want'st thou then?'
'Sirs! only that'—'Say when and what'—
You'd be so good'—'Say what and when'
'This moment to get down again!'
'We do it! we do it! we all get down! 40
But we take you with us to swim
or drown!
Down a down to the grim Engulpher!'
'O me! I am floundering in Fire and Sulphur!
That the Dragon had scrounched you, squeal 45
and squall—
Cabbalists! Conjurers! great and small,
Johva Mitzoveh Evohāen and all!
Had I never uttered your jaw-breaking words,
I might now have been sloshing down Junket and Curds, 50
Like a Devonshire Christian:
But now a Philistine!

Ye Earthmen! be warned by a judgement so tragic,
And wipe yourselves cleanly with all books of magic—
Hark! hark! it is Dives! 'Hold your Bother, you Booby! 55
I am burnt ashy white, and you yet are but ruby.'

Epilogue.

We ask and urge (here ends the story)
All Christian Papishes to pray
That this unhappy Conjurer may
Instead of Hell, be but in Purgatory— 60
For then there's Hope,—
Long live the Pope!

Catholicus.

? 1805, ? 1814.

FOOTNOTES:

[399:1] Now first printed from one of Coleridge's Notebooks. The last stanza—the Epilogue—was first published by H. N. Coleridge as part of an 'Uncomposed Poem', in Literary Remains, 1836, i. 52: first collected in Appendix to P. and D. W., 1877-80, ii. 366. There is no conclusive evidence as to the date of composition. The handwriting, and the contents of the Notebook might suggest a date between 1813 and 1816. The verses are almost immediately preceded by a detached note printed at the close of an essay entitled 'Self-love in Religion' which is included among the 'Omniana of 1809', Literary Remains, 1834, i. 354-6: 'O magical, sympathetic, anima! [Archeus, MS.] principium hylarchichum! rationes spermaticæ! λόγοι ποιητικοί! O formidable words! And O Man! thou marvellous beast-angel! thou ambitious beggar! How pompously dost thou trick out thy very ignorance with such glorious disguises, that thou mayest seem to hide in order to worship it.'