Aptest angel and the lovliest!
a God betrayed, to whom no anthems rise,
Satan, take pity on my sore distress!
Prince of exiles, exiled Prince who, wronged,
yet rises ever stronger from defeat,
Satan, take pity on my sore distress!
Omniscient ruler of the hidden realm,
patient healer of all human pain,
Satan, take pity on my sore distress!
Who even to lepers and such outcast scum
by love inculcates all we know of bliss,
Satan, take pity on my sore distress!
Who gave to Death, your oldest paramour,
a child both lunatic and lovely—Hope!
Who grants the criminal’s last look of pride
that damns the crowd beneath the guillotine,
Who knows each cranny in the grudging earth
where gems are hidden by a jealous God,
Satan, take pity on my sore distress!
Whose eye can pierce the deepest arsenal
where buried metals slumber in the dark,
Within whose mighty arm the sleepwalker
avoids the rooftop’s yawning precipice,
Satan, take pity on my sore distress!
Who magically rescues the old bones
of drunkards trampled by the horses’ hooves,
Satan, take pity on my sore distress!
Who to console our sufferings has taught
how readily shot and powder may be mixed,
Satan, take pity on my sore distress!
Who sets your sign, in sly complicity,
upon the rich man’s unrelenting brow,
Satan, take pity on my sore distress!
Who lights in women’s greedy hearts and eyes
worship of wounds, rapacity for rags,
Satan, take pity on my sore distress!
The outlaw’s staff and the inventor’s lamp,
confessor to the traitor, hanged man’s priest,
Satan, take pity on my sore distress!
Adoptive father to those an angry God
the Father drove from His earthly paradise,
Satan, take pity on my sore distress!
Satan be praised! Glory to you on High
where once you reigned in Heaven, and in the
Pit where now you dream in taciturn defeat!
Grant that my soul, one day, beneath the Tree
of Knowledge, meet you when above your brow
its branches, like a second Temple, spread! |
