Litanies of Satan
Wisest of Angels, whom your fate betrays,
And, fairest of them all, deprives of praise,
Satan have pity on my long despair!
O Prince of exiles, who have suffered wrong,
Yet, vanquished, rise from every fall more strong,
Satan have pity on my long despair!
All-knowing lord of subterranean things,
Who remedy our human sufferings,
Satan have pity on my long despair!
To lepers and lost beggars full of lice,
You teach, through love, the taste of Paradise.
Satan have pity on my long despair!
You who on Death, your old and sturdy wife,
Engendered Hope — sweet folly of this life —
Satan have pity on my long despair!
You give to the doomed man that calm, unbaffled
Gaze that rebukes the mob around the scaffold,
Satan have pity on my long despair!
You know in what closed corners of the earth
A jealous God has hidden gems of worth.
Satan have pity on my long despair!
You know the deepest arsenals, where slumber
The breeds of buried metals without number.
Satan have pity on my long despair!
You whose huge hand has hidden the abyss
From sleepwalkers that skirt the precipice,
Satan have pity on my long despair!
You who give suppleness to drunkards' bones
When trampled down by horses on the stones,
Satan have pity on my long despair!
You who, to make his sufferings the lighter,
Taught man to mix the sulphur with the nitre,
Satan have pity on my long despair!
You fix your mask, accomplice full of guile,
On rich men's foreheads, pitiless and vile.
Satan have pity on my long despair!
You who fill the hearts and eyes of whores
With love of trifles and the cult of sores,
Satan have pity on my long despair!
The exile's staff, inventor's lamp, caresser
Of hanged men, and of plotters the confessor,
Satan have pity on my long despair!
Step-father of all those who, robbed of pardon,
God drove in anger out of Eden's garden
Satan have pity on my long despair!
Prayer
And also in the deeps where now you sit,
Vanquished, in Hell, and dream in hushed defiance
O that my soul, beneath the Tree of Science
Might rest near you, while shadowing your brows,
It spreads a second Temple with its boughs.
— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)
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