Had heighten'd the natural flush of her face
To a pitch 'bove rouge or carmine.

XVII

Semiramis there low tendered herself,
With all Babel for a dowry:
With Helen, the flower and the bane of Greece--
And bloody Medea next offer'd her fleece,
That was of Hell the Houri.

XVIII

Clytemnestra, with Joan of Naples, put in;
Cleopatra, by Anthony quicken'd;
Jocasta, that married where she should not,
Came hand in hand with the Daughters of Lot;
Till the Devil was fairly sicken'd.

XIX

For the Devil himself, a dev'l as he is,
Disapproves unequal matches.
"O Mother," he cried, "dispatch them hence!
No Spirit--I speak it without offence--
Shall have me in her hatches."

XX

With a wave of her wand they all were gone!
And now came out the slaughter:
"'Tis none of these that can serve my turn;
For a wife of flesh and blood I burn--
I'm in love with a Taylor's Daughter.

XXI

"'Tis she must heal the wounds that she made,
'Tis she must be my physician.
O parent mild, stand not my foe"--
For his mother had whisper'd something low
About "matching beneath his condition."--

XXII

"And then we must get paternal consent,
Or an unblest match may vex ye"--
"Her father is dead; I fetched him away.
In the midst of his goose, last Michaelmas day--
He died of an apoplexy.

XXIII

"His daughter is fair, and an only heir--
With her I long to tether--
He has left her his _hell_, and all that he had;
The estates are contiguous, and I shall be mad,
'Till we lay our two Hells together."

XXIV

"But how do you know the fair maid's mind?"--
Quoth he, "Her loss was but recent;
And I could not speak _my_ mind you know,
Just when I was fetching her father below--
It would have been hardly decent.

XXV

"But a leer from her eye, where Cupids lie,
Of love gave proof apparent;
And, from som