When Lucifer's rapscallions
Unsheathed their flaming swords
And Heaven's bright battalions
Opposed the rebel hordes,
The Seraphs of the Seasons--
Of Water, Air and Land--
For sound, prudential reasons
Declined to take a hand,
Lamenting that the fight was
A dreadful stroke of Fate
And doubting where the Right was,
They guessed they'd watch and wait.
But after Michael's legions
Had hurled the fiends accursed
To Sheol's hottest regions
(See Milton, Book the First),
The Seraphs who had faltered,
So neutral and so nice,
Their glory sadly altered,
Were shut from Paradise.
And now as fairies, pixies,
Pigwidgeons, leprechauns,
As kobolds, jinns, and nixes,
As satyrs, nymphs, and fauns,
Controlled by spirits seven
On Middle Earth they dwell,
Not good enough for Heaven
Nor bad enough for Hell.
