"[15]
So his profanity in the "Vision of Judgment," was in answer to Southey's
poem of that name, the introduction of which contained strictures
against him. Accused of being Satanic, he replies with some profanity,
and with that humour which he principally shows in such retorts--
"Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate,
His keys wore rusty, and the lock was dull,
So little trouble had been given of late--
Not that the place by any means was full;
But since the Gallic era 'eighty-eight'
The devils had ta'en a longer, stronger pull,
And 'a pull together,' as they say
At sea--which drew most souls another way.
"The angels all were singing out of tune,
And hoarse with having little else to do,
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon,
Or curb a runaway young star or two,
Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon
Broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal blue,
Splitting some planet with its playful tail
As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale."
The effect of Southey reading _his_ "Vision of Judgment" is thus
given:--
"Those grand heroics acted as a spell,
The angels stopped their ears, and plied their pinions,
The devils ran howling deafened down to hell,
The ghosts fled gibbering, for their own dominions."
His poem on a lady who maligned him to his wife, seems to show that he
did not well distinguish where the humorous ends and the ludicrous
begins.
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