her vacant face, A smile that promis’d premature assent; Tho’ her Regret behind, a meagre Fiend, Disciplin’d sorely. Here they entered in, And now arrived where, as in study tranced, She sat, the Mistress of the Dome. Her face Spake that composed severity, that knows No angry impulse, no weak tenderness, Resolved and calm. Before her lay that Book That hath the words of Life; and as she read, Sometimes a tear would trickle down her cheek, Tho’ heavenly joy beam’d in her eye the while. Leaving her undisturb’d, to the first ward Of this great Lazar-house, the Angel led The favour’d Maid of Orleans. Kneeling down On the hard stone that their bare knees had worn, In sackcloth robed, a numerous train appear’d: Hard-featured some, and some demurely grave; Yet such expression stealing from the eye, As tho’, that only naked, all the rest Was one close fitting mask. A scoffing Fiend, For Fiend he was, tho’ wisely serving here Mock’d at his patients, and did often pour Ashes upon them, and then bid them say Their prayers aloud, and then he louder laughed: For these were Hypocrites, on earth revered As holy ones, who did in public tell Their beads, and make long prayers, and cross themselves, And call themselves most miserable sinners, That so they might be deem’d most pious saints; And go all filth, and never let a smile Bend their stern muscles, gloomy, sullen men, Barren of all affection, and all this To please their God, forsooth! and therefore Scorn Grinn’d at his patients, making them repeat Their solemn farce, with keenest raillery Tormenting; but if earnest in their prayer, They pour’d the silent sorrows of the soul To Heaven, then did they not regard his mocks Which then came painless, and Humility Soon rescued them, and led to Penitence, That She might lead to Heaven. From thence they came, Where, in the next ward, a most wretched band Groan’d underneath the bitter tyranny Of a fierce Daemon. His coarse hair was red, Pale grey his eyes, and blood-shot; and his face Wrinkled by such a smile as Malice wears In ecstacy. Well-pleased he went around, Plunging his dagger in the hearts of some, Or probing with a poison’d lance their breasts, Or placing coals of fire within their wounds; Or seizing some within his mighty grasp, He fix’d them on a stake, and then drew back, And laugh’d to see them writhe. “These,” said the Spirit, Are taught by Cruelty, to loath the lives They led themselves. Here are those wicked men Who loved to exercise their tyrant power On speechless brutes; bad husbands undergo A long purgation here; the traffickers In human flesh here too are disciplined. Till by their suffering they have equall’d all The miseries they inflicted, all the mass Of wretchedness caused by the wars they waged, The towns they burnt, for they who bribe to 

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