Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/317

Rh The Devil he sat behind the bars, where the desperate legions drew,

But he caught the hasting Tomlinson and would not let him through.

"Wot ye the price of good pit-coal that I must pay?" said he,

"That ye rank yoursel' so fit for Hell and ask no leave of me?

"I am all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that ye should give me scorn,

"For I strove with God for your First Father the day that he was born.

"Sit down, sit down upon the slag, and answer loud and high

"The harm that ye did to the Sons of Men or ever you came to die."

And Tomlinson looked up and up, and saw against the night

The belly of a tortured star blood-red in Hell-Mouth light;

And Tomlinson looked down and down, and saw beneath his feet

The frontlet of a tortured star milk-white in Hell-Mouth heat.