Lament of an Idle Demon
It's quiet in Hell just now, it's very tame,
The devils and the damned alike lie snoring.
Just a faint smell of sulphur, not much flame;
The human souls come here and find it boring.
Satan, the poor old Puritan, sits there
Emitting mocking laughter once a minute;
Idly he scans a page of Baudelaire
And wonders how he once saw evil in it.
He sips his brimstone at the Demons' Club
(His one amusement now he's superseded)
And keeps complaining to Beelzebub
That men make hotter hells than ever he did.
**
The Revolutionaries
O tremble, all ye earthly Princes,
Bow down the crowned and chrism'd nob;
Wise is the Potentate that winces
At the just clamour of the mob.
Shiver, ye Bishops, doff your mitres,
Huddle between your empty pews
Here comes a horde of left-wing writers
Brandishing salmon-pink reviews.
Comes the New Age. Your outworn faces
Vanish at our enlightened curse,
While we erect in your old places
Something considerably worse.
Both from "The New Oxford Book of English Light Verse" (1978), chosen and edited by Kingsley Amis.