The Devil and the Grog-Seller

                                             I.
The grog-seller sat by his bar-room fire,
With his feet as high as his head, and higher—
Watching the smoke, as he puffed it out,
That in spiral columns curled about,
Veiling his face with its fleecy fold,
AS lazily up from his lips it rolled,
While a doubtful scent and a twilight gloom
Were slowly gathered to fill the room.

                                             II.
To their drunken slumbers, one by one,
Foolish and fuddled, is friends had gone,
To wake in the morn to the drunkard’s pain,
With a bloodshot eye and a whirling brain.
Drowsily rang the watchman’s cry—
“Past two o’clock and a cloudy sky!”
Yet the host sat wakeful still, and shook
His head, and winked with a knowing look.

                                             III.
“Ho! ho!” said he, with a chuckling tone,
“I knows the way that the thing is done—
Twice five are ten—and another V,
Two ones, two twos, and a ragged three,
Make twenty-four for my well-filled fob—
He! he! ‘tis a rather good night’s job!
The fools have guzzled my brandy and wine—
Much good may it do them—the cash is mine!”

                                             IV.
And he winked again with a knowing look,
And from his cigar the ashes shook—
“He! he! the younkers are in my net—
I have them safe, and I’ll fleece them yet!
There’s Brown—what a jolly dog is he—
And he swells the way that I like to see;
Let him dash for a while at this reckless rate,
And his farm is mine as sure as fate.

                                             V.
I’ve a mortgage now on Tompkins’ lot—
What a fool he was to become a sot!
But it’s luck to me—in a month or so
I shall foreclose, and the scamp must go.
Zounds! Won’t his wife have a “taking on,”
When she learns that his house and his lot are gone?
How she will blubber and sob and sigh—
But business is business—and what care I?

                                             VI.
And Gibson has murdered his child, they say—
He was drunk as a fool here, yesterday;
And I gave him a hint as I went to fill
Hug jug—but the brute would have his will.
And the folks blame me!—why, bless their gizzards!
If I didn’t sell, he would go to Izzard’s!
Iv’e a right to engage in a lawful trade,
And take my chance where there’s cash to be made.

                                             VII.
If men get drunk and go home to turn
Their wives out doors, ‘tis their own concern—
But I hate to have women come to me
With their tweedled-dum and their tweedled-dee,
With their swollen eyes and their haggard looks,
And their speeches learn’d from the temperance books;
With their pale, lean children—the whimpering fools!
Why can’t they go to the public schools?

                                             VIII.
Let the hussies mind their own affairs,
For never have I interfered with theirs—
I will turn no customer away
Who is willing to buy and able to pay;
For business is business—he! he!—he! he!”
And he rubbed his hands in his chuckling glee—
“Many a lark I have caught in my net—
I have them safe—I will fleece them yet!”

                                             IX.
“He! he!—he! he!” ‘Twas an echoed sound—
Amazed, the grog-seller looked around;
This side and that through the smoke peered he
But nought but the chairs could the grog-seller see.
“Ho! ho!—ha! ha!”—with a guttural note
It seemed to come from an iron throat—
And his knees they shook and his hair ‘gan rise,
And he opened his mouth and strained his eyes:

                                             X.
And lo! in a corner, dark and dim,
Stood an uncouth form with an aspect grim—
From his grisly head, through his snaky hair,
Sprouted, of hard rough horns, a pair—
And redly, his shaggy brows below,
Like sulphurous flame did his small eyes glow—
And his lips were curled with a sinister smile,
And the smoke belched forth from his mouth the while.

                                             XI.
Folded and buttoned around his breast,
Was a quaint and silvery-gleaming vest;
Asbestos it seemed—but we only guess
Why he should fancy so cold a dress—
Breeches he wore of an amber hue,
From the rear of which a tail peeped through;
His feet were shaped like a bullock’s hoof,
And the boots he wore were caloric proof.

                                             XII.
In his hand he bore—if a hand it was,
Whose fingers were shaped like a vulture’s claws—
A three-tined fork, and its prongs so dull
Through the sockets were thrust of a grinning skull—
Like a sceptre he waved it to and fro,
As he softly chuckled “ha! ha!—ho! o!”
And all the while were his eyes, that burned
Like sulphurous flames on the grog-seller turned!

                                             XIII.
And how did he feel beneath that look?
Why, his jaw fell down, and he shivered and shook,
And quivered and quaked in every limb,
As an ague-fit had hold of him!
And his eyes to the monster grim were glued,
And his tongue was as stuff as a billet of wood.
But the fiend laughed on—“ho! ho!—he! he!”
And swished his tail in his quiet glee.

                                             XIV.
“Why, what do you fear, my friend?” he said,
And nodded the horns on his grisly head—
“You’re an ally of mine, and I love you well!
In a very warm country that men call Hell,
I hold my court—and I’m proud to say
I have not a faithfuller fiend in pay
Than you, dear Sir, for a work of evil—
Mayhap you don’t know me? I’m called the Devil!”

                                             XV.
Like a galvanized corpse, so pale and wan,
Upstarted, instanter, that horror-struck man—
And he turned up the whites of his goggle-eyes,
With a look half terror and half surprise,
And his tongue was loosed—but his words were few—
“The Devil!—you don’t—” “Yes, faith! I do!”
Interrupted Old Nick—“and here’s the proofs—
Just twig my tail, and my horns, and hoofs!

                                             XVI.
“Having come from a warmer clime below,
To chat with a friend for an hour or so,
And the night being somewhat chill, I think
You might ask an old crony to take a drink!
Now let it be strong—the clear, pure stuff—
Sweetened with brimstone—a quart is enough—
Stir up the mess in an iron cup,
And heat by the fire till it bubbles up!”

                                             XVII.
As the devil bade so the grog-seller did,
Filling a flagon with gin to the lid—
And when it boiled and bubbled o’er,
The fiery draught to his guest he bore.
Nick in a jiffy the liquor did quaff,
And thanked his host with a guttural laugh—
But faint and few were the smiles, I ween,
That on the grog-seller’s face were seen.

                                             XVIII.
For a mortal fear was on him then,
And he deemed that the ways of living men
He would tread no more—that his hour had come,
And his Master too, to call him home!
Thought went back to the darkened past,
And shrieks were heard on the wintery blast,
And gliding before him, pale and dim,
Were gibbering fiends and spectres grim!

                                             XIX.
“Ho! ho!” said Nic, “’tis a welcome cold
You give to a friend so true and old,
Who has been for years in your own employ,
Running about like an errand boy.
But we’ll not fall out, for I clearly see
You are rather afraid (‘tis strange!) of me.
Do you think I’ve come for you?—never fear;
You can’t be spared for a long while here!

                                             XX.
“There are hearts to break, there are souls to win
From the ways of peace to the paths of sin—
There are homes to be rendered desolate—
There is trusting love to be changed to hate—
There are hands that murder must crimson red—
There are hopes to crush—there is blight to be shed
Over the young and the pure and fair,
Till their lives are crushed by the fiend Despair!

                                             XXI.
“This is the work you have done so well,
Cursing the earth and peopling hell—
Quenching the light on the inner shrine
Of the human soul, till you make it mine!
Want and Sorrow, Disease and Shame,
And Crimes that even I shudder to name,
Dance and howl in their hellish glee
Around the spirits you’ve marked for me!

                                             XXII.
“Oh, selling of grog is a good device
To make a hell of Paradise!
Wherever may roll the fiery flood,
It is swollen with tears—it is stained with blood!
And the voice that was heard erewhile in prayer,
With its muttered curses stirs the air—
And the hand that shielded the wife from ill,
In its drunken wrath is raised to kill!

                                             XXIII.
“Hold on your course!—you are filling up,
With the wine of the wrath of God, your cup—
And the fiends exult in their homes below,
As you deepen the pangs of human wo!
Long will it be, if I have my way,
Ere the night of death shall close your day—
For, to pamper your lust for the glittering pelf,
You rival in mischief the Devil himself!”

                                             XXIV.
Nor more said the fiend—for, clear and high,
Rung out on the air the watchman’s cry—
With a coking sob and a half-formed scream
The grog-seller waked—it was all a dream!
His grisly guest with is horns had flown—
The lamp was out and the fire was gone—
And, sad and silent, his bed he sought,
And long of the wondrous vision thought!