Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Devonshire Roads
The indignant Bard composed this furious ode,
As tired he dragg'd his way thro' Plimtree road!
   Crusted with filth and stuck in mire
   Dull sounds the Bard's bemudded lyre;
   Nathless Revenge and Ire the Poet goad
   To pour his imprecations on the road.
   Curst road! whose execrable way
   Was darkly shadow'd out in Milton's lay,
   When the sad fiends thro' Hell's sulphureous roads
   Took the first survey of their new abodes;
   Or when the fall'n Archangel fierce
   Dar'd through the realms of Night to pierce,
   What time the Bloodhound lur'd by Human scent
   Thro' all Confusion's quagmires floundering went.
Nor cheering pipe, nor Bird's shrill note
Around thy dreary paths shall float;
Their boding songs shall scritch-owls pour
To fright the guilty shepherds sore,
Led by the wandering fires astray
Thro' the dank horrors of thy way!
While they their mud-lost sandals hunt
May all the curses, which they grunt
In raging moan like goaded hog,
Alight upon thee, damnéd Bog!