"Raising the Devil" (A Poem)

For clergyman Richard Harris Barham, poetry became a means to mock the Devil and the writer often depicted the figure as a buffoon or a mild threat which was more ludicrous than dangerous. In “Raising the Devil,” a youth attempts to summon the dark entity and is met with only disappointment and an empty purse.[1]

 

'And hast thou nerve enough?' he said,

That Grey old Man, above whose head

Unnumber'd years had roll'd,—

'And hast thou nerve to view,' he cried,

'The incarnate Fiend that Heaven defied!

— Art thou indeed so bold?'

 

'Say, canst Thou, with unshrinking gaze,

Sustain, rash youth, the withering blaze

Of that unearthly eye,

That blasts where'er it lights,— the breath

That, like the Simoom, scatters death

On all that yet can die!

 

—'Darest thou confront that fearful form,

That rides the whirlwind, and the storm,

In wild unholy revel!

The terrors of that blasted brow,

Archangel's once,— though ruin'd now —

— Ay,— dar'st thou face THE DEVIL?'—

 

'I dare!' the desperate Youth replied,

And placed him by that Old Man's side,

In fierce and frantic glee,

Unblench'd his cheek, and firm his limb

—'No paltry juggling Fiend, but HIM!

— THE DEVIL!— I fain would see!—

 

'In all his Gorgon terrors clad,

His worst, his fellest shape!' the Lad

Rejoined in reckless tone.—

—'Have then thy wish!' Agrippa said,

And sigh'd and shook his hoary head,

With many a bitter groan.

 

He drew the mystic circle's bound,

With skull and cross-bones fenc'd around;

He traced full many a sigil there;

He mutter'd many a backward pray'r,

That sounded like a curse—

'He comes!'— he cried with wild grimace,

'The fellest of Apollyon's race!'—

— Then in his startled pupil's face

He dash'd — an EMPTY PURSE!![2]

 

Works Referenced

 

Barham, Richard Harris. “Raising the Devil: A Legend of Cornelius Agrippa.” The Ingoldsby Legends or Mirth and Marvels. London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1885. 166.

 

Bartles, Sarah. The Devil and the Victorians: Supernatural Evil in Nineteenth-Century English Culture. London: Routledge, 2021.

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[1] Bartles, 206.

[2] Barham, 166.