Unto the devil, rough and black of hue,
Give I thy body, and the pan to boot."

And when this devil heard her give the brute Thus in his charge, he stoop'd into her ear, And said, "Now, Mabily, my mother dear, your will in earnest that ye say The dev'l," quoth she, so fetch him clean away, Soul, pan, and all, unless that he repent."

Is this

Repent!" the Sumner cried; "pay up your rent, Old fool; and don't stand preaching here to me. I would I had thy whole inventory,

The smock from off thy back, and every cloth."

"Now, brother," quoth the devil, "be not wroth; Thy body and this pan be mine by right, And thou shalt straight to hell with me to night, Where thou shalt know what sort of folk we be, Better than Oxford university."

And with that word the fiend him swept below, Body and soul. He went where Sumners go.

THE

COMPLAINT OF MARS AND VENUS

MODERNIZED

BY ROBERT BELL.

PROLOGUE

TO THE

COMPLAINT OF MARS AND VENUS.

6

1.

REJOICE, ye lovers, in the morning gray!
Lo, Venus rises in the whispering reeds;
And flowers renew your homage to the day,
Waking in beauty o'er the upland meads :
But ye, whose trembling passion vainly pleads,
Fly hence in fear, lest wicked tongues be nigh-
Yonder's the Sun-the torch of jealousy!

2.

'With falling tears, and with a wounded heart,
Take your sad leave; but hope from patience borrow,
And let the knowledge soothe your aching smart,
That a time cometh which shall end your sorrow;
For the glad night is worth a heavy morrow.'
Thus sang a bird, Saint Valentine, what time,
Thy natal day was in its early prime.