Thou mortal Belial! thee I name

Thou mortal Belial! thee I name The mightiest sophist known to fame. In the old Hellenic isles, Rich in rhetoric’s winning wiles, ’Mongst their most persuasive dead, None like thee was ever bred; E’en the Ithacensian’s lips Thou couldst cast into eclipse; Nor serpent’s eye, nor siren’s lute, Nor Coptic Lotos’ magic fruit, Could bewilder and entrance, Like thy honied utterance.