The Devil's Walk (Letter Version)

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Clear Reading Text

edited by Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat

This on-line version of Shelley's The Devil's Walk (Letter Version) offers a text that does not contain any mark-up or hyperlinks. See DW Diplomatic Transcription for the fully encoded version.

The Devil's Walk exists in both a broadside and a letter version. See the editors' headnote for a fuller description of its history and significance . You can also browse independently:

• primary variants from our critically edited text as collated against the copy of the 1812 broadside in the Public Record Office (1812.PRO).
• broadside variants from our critically edited text as collated against all witnesses (i.e., the primary witness and 1871, 1876, 1892, 1927, 1970, 1972, and 1989).
• letter variants from our diplomatic text as collated against all witnesses (i.e., Wise, 1927/i, 1927/viii, 1964J, 1972, and 1989).
• annotations by the editors:
  • for the broadside version
  • for the letter version

For full citations of these sources and sources in the editors' notes, see the bibliography

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Letter Version

N.B. This is a literal transcription of the text in the British Library Add. MS. 37,496, f.80 verso, except that letters partially worn away by damage to, or repair of, the paper have been included as if whole and the line-indentations that Shelley seems to have intended have been accentuated.
               

The Devil went out a walking one day
Being tired of staying in Hell
He dressed himself in his Sunday array
And the reason that he was drest so gay
Was to cunningly pry, whether under the sky	5
The affairs of earth went well
__
He poked his hot nose into corners so small
One wd. think that the innocents there
Poor creatures were just doing nothing at all
But settling some dress or arranging some ball	10
­­The Devil saw deeper there
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He peeped in each hole, to each chamber stole
His promising live-stock to view
Grinning applause, he just shews his claws
And Satan laughed in the mirth of his soul	15
That they started with fright, from his ugly sight
Whose works they delighted to do
__
A Parson with whom in the house of prayer
The devil sate side by side
Bawled out that if the devil were	20
His presence he couldnt abide,   trick
Ha ha thought old Nick, thats a very stale
For without the Devil, ô favorite of evil   ^
In thy carriage thou wouldst not ride
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He saw the Devil a viper slay	25
Under his brief-covered table
It reminded the Devil marvellously
Of the story of Cain and Abel
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SECOND COLUMN
Satan next saw a Brainless King
In a house as hot as his own	30
Many imps he saw near there on the wi[ng]
They flapped the black pennon and twiste[d]
the sting
Close to the very throne
__
Ah! Ah cried Satan the pasture is go[od]
My cattle will here thrive better than oth[ers]	35
They will have for their food, news of
humans blood
They will drink the groans of the dying
& dead
And supperless never will go to bed
Wch. will make 'em as fat as their
brothers .
__
The Devil was walking in the Park	40
Dressed like a bond Street beau
For altho his visage was rather dark
And his mouth was wide his chin came
out
And something like Castlereagh was his
snout
He might be calld so, so . .	45
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Why does the Devil grin so wide
& shew the hore teeth within
Nine and ninety on each side
By the clearest reckoning _

DW Diplomatic Text of the Letter Version

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Romantic Circles / Electronic Editions / The Devil's Walk / Letter Version: Clear Reading Text

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