--Hilaire Belloc's Christmas Carol
When I am dead, I hope it is said, 'His sins were scarlet, but his books were read'.
It's quiet in Hell just now, it's very tame,
The devils and the damned alike lie snoring.
Just a faint smell of sulphur, not much flame;
The human souls come here and find it boring.
Satan, the poor old Puritan, sits there
Emitting mocking laughter once a minute;
Idly he scans a page of Baudelaire
And wonders how he once saw evil in it.
He sips his brimstone at the Demons’ Club
(His one amusement now he’s superseded)
And keeps complaining to Beelzebub
That men make hotter hells than ever he did.
-- R. P. Lister