Classic Poem

A LAS for Adam's brittle clay
And progeny of evils!
O daughter mine, the people say
That you have seven devils.
Yes, holy father, such is the fact,
Never was sinner so sorely attacked.
Seven huge demons of habits erratic
Range through my spirit from cellar to attic.
They have got all the keys, they do just as they please.
They cry, ‘Give us a back,’ when I go on my knees.
Now like leopards they leap, now like grey-hounds they run,
Now sit mute as bears that are munching a bun,
Whisking their tails and full of fun.
Jolly companions every one.

O daughter mine, this will not do!
Daughter, this may not be!
But how I'm to deliver you
I don't exactly see.
What rite, what relic, what prayer, what pang,
Will scatter 'em or scare 'em?
Shall I curse them out of the Hollenzwang?
Or the Malleus Maleficarum?
Not either, good father. If cursing would do,
I could curse them myself, and much better than you.

When Christ o'erthrew the demons' sway
In Mary Magdalen,
He chided not the fiends away,
He led an angel in.
The demons wax dull as her brightness prevails,
They blink hard, they cover their eyes with their tails,
They make for the door, they are heard of no more,
Save one of them only, an obstinate bore,
Who crept, or who crawled, back, and said, ‘I have called

To save me from the demons' claws,
O father, teach me how to love
Some glad pursuit, some glorious cause,
Some heart below, some hope above.
Art, with her statue and her song,
Science, with rapt regarding eye,
The People, with its woe and wrong,
Or anything that is not I.
Else fracture not the fetter
That binds me to demon and elf,
For a fiendish mate is better
Than man that is mate to himself.