"Ah, ha!" said the Devil. "You scorn the wine!
Thrice shall you sin, I say,
To win me a crown from a friend of mine,
Ere three o' the clock this day.
Are you calling to mind some lady fair?
And is she a wife or a maiden rare?
'Twere folly to shackle young love, hot Youth;
And stolen kisses are sweet, forsooth!"

"Begone, foul Devil!" I made reply;
"For never in all my life
Have I looked on a woman with lustful eye,
Be she maid, or widow, or wife.
But my brothers! Alas! I am scandalized
By their evil passions so ill disguised.
And I name no names, but my thanks I give
That I loathe the lives my fellow-men live."

"Ho, ho!" roared the Devil in fiendish glee.
"'Tis a silver crown I win!
Thrice have you fallen! 0 Pharisee,
You have sinned your darling sin!"
"But, nay," said I; "and I scorn your lure.
I have sinned no sin, and my heart is pure.
Come, show me a sign of the sin you see!"
But the Devil was gone . . . and the clock struck three.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .