Full on his cusp his angry master sate,
Conjoined with Saturn, baleful both to man:
Of secret slaughters, empires overturned,
Strife, blood, and massacres, expect to hear,
And all the events of an ill-omened year.
_Mal._ Then flourish hell, and mighty mischief reign!
Mischief, to some, to others must be good.
But hark! for now, though 'tis the dead of night,
When silence broods upon our darkened world,
Methinks I hear a murmuring hollow sound,
Like the deaf chimes of bells in steeples touched.
_Mel._ It is truly guessed;
But know, 'tis from no nightly sexton's hand.
There's not a damned ghost, nor hell-born fiend,
That can from limbo 'scape, but hither flies;
With leathern wings they beat the dusky skies,
To sacred churches all in swarms repair;
Some crowd the spires, but most the hallowed bells, }
And softly toll for souls departing knells: }
Each chime, thou hear'st, a future death foretells, }
Now there they perch to have them in their eyes,
'Till all go loaded to the nether skies[15].
_Mal._ To-morrow then.
_Mel._ To-morrow let it be;
Or thou deceiv'st those hungry, gaping fiends,
And Beelzebub will rage.
_Mal._ Why Beelzebub? hast thou not often said,
That Lucifer's your king?
_Mel._ I told thee true;
But Lucifer, as he who foremost fell,
So now lies lowest in the abyss of hell,
Chained till the dreadful doom; in place of whom
Sits Beelzebub, vicegerent of the damned,
Who, listening downward, hears his roaring lord,
And executes his purpose.
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