XXIX

“Then take a blessing, my darling Son,”
Quoth she, and kiss’d him civil—­
Then his neckcloth she tied; and when he was drest
From top to toe in his Sunday’s best,
He appear’d a comely devil.

XXX

So his leave he took:—­but how he fared
In his courtship—­barring failures—­
In a Second Part you shall read it soon,
In a bran new song, to be sung to the tune
Of the “Devil among the Tailors.”

* * * * *

THE SECOND PART

Containing the Courtship, and the Wedding

I

Who is She that by night from her balcony looks
On a garden, where cabbage is springing? 
’Tis the Tailor’s fair Lass, that we told of above;
She muses by moonlight on her True Love;
So sharp is Cupid’s stinging.

II

She has caught a glimpse of the Prince of the Air
In his Luciferian splendour,
And away with her coyness and maiden reserve!—­
For none but the Devil her turn will serve,
Her sorrows else will end her.

III

She saw when he fetch’d her father away,
And the sight no whit did shake her;
For the Devil may sure with his own make free—­
And “it saves besides,” quoth merrily she,
“The expence of an Undertaker.—­

IV

“Then come, my Satan, my darling Sin,
Return to my arms, my Hell Beau;
My Prince of Darkness, my crow-black Dove”—­
And she scarce had spoke, when her own True Love
Was kneeling at her elbow!

V

But she wist not at first that this was He,
That had raised such a boiling passion;
For his old costume he had laid aside,
And was come to court a mortal bride
In a coat-and-waistcoat fashion.

VI

She miss’d his large horns, and she miss’d his fair tail,
That had hung so retrospective;
And his raven plumes, and some other marks
Regarding his feet, that had left their sparks
In a mind but too susceptive: 

VII

And she held in scorn that a mortal born
Should the Prince of Spirits rival,
To clamber at midnight her garden fence—­
For she knew not else by what pretence
To account for his arrival.

VIII

“What thief art thou,” quoth she, “in the dark
That stumblest here presumptuous? 
Some Irish Adventurer I take you to be—­
A Foreigner, from your garb I see,
Which besides is not over sumptuous.”

IX

Then Satan, awhile dissembling his rank,
A piece of amorous fun tries: 
Quoth he, “I’m a Netherlander born;
Fair Virgin, receive not my suit with scorn;
I’m a Prince in the Low Countries—­

X

“Though I travel incog.  From the Land of Fog
And Mist I am come to proffer
My crown and my sceptre to lay at your feet;
It is not every day in the week you may meet,
Fair Maid, with a Prince’s offer.”