Explore "Vale Diabole" by Oliver Herford on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
At a recent church conference it was decided to drop the Devil from the ritual.
Well! Well! so you've been fired, / You've lost your job at last. / It's high time you retired, / Old Boy, you're failing fast.
You're getting old, you know it, / You are not in the race. / Admit you cannot go it, / The killing, modern pace.
Your methods are too dull for / The modern school of Hate, / Your lake of burning sulphur / Is sadly out of date.
The Hohenzollern's Kultur / Mocks at your fiery pits, / His double-headed vulture / Has put yours on the fritz.
Beside the fierce, blaspheming, / Mail-fisted Kaiser Bill, / You are a seraph beaming, / An angel of good-will.
But tho' we can't deny, sir, / You're hopelessly outclassed, / You've one thing on the Kaiser, / Which is, tho' first and last
A failure as a devil, / Yet boast of this you can: / You were always on the level -- / And -- you are a gentleman!