How Many Devils Can Dance on the Point . . .


        1
        Why, this is hell,
        And we are in it.
        It began with mysterious punishments
        And the punishments led to the crimes
        Which are currently being punished.
        The more rational you are
        (What you have paid for
        You will expect to obtain
        Without further payment)
        The less your chances of remission.
        Only the insane and saintly
        Who kiss the rod so hard they break it
        Escape to a palliated hell.
        For the rest, why, this is it,
        And we are in it.
        

        2
       Then what of those
       Whose punishment was such they
       Never lived to carry out their crimes?
       Children, say,
       More than whose fingers were held
       For more than a second in more than
       The flame of a candle;
       Though not exclusively children.
       (No need to draw a picture for you:
       The chamber, the instruments, the torture;
       Forget the unimaginable, the
       Imaginable suffices for present purposes.)
       If the other was hell
       Then what is this?--
       There are gradations of Hades
       Like the Civil Service
       Whereby the first is paradise
       Compared with the last;
       And heaven is where we are
       When we think of where we might have been.
       (Except that when we think,
       We are in hell.)


       3
       Can this be heaven
       Where a thoughtful landlord
       Locates the windows of his many mansions
       To afford you such a view?
       (The chamber, the instruments, the torture.)
       Can it be
       The gratifying knowledge of having pleased
       Someone who derives such pleasure
       From being thus gratified?


       4
       Moves, then,
       In a mysterious way . . .
       Except that
       Lucid, strict, and certain,
       Shining, wet, and hard,
       No mystery at all--
       Why, this is hell.

                      
                                              -- D. J. Enright