their hats upon their heads, but they were turned back for their
unmannerly behaviour. After that, some of the children of the barn, who
had been there for some time, began to speak. "We have," said they, "no
other statute than you, therefore show us our dignity." "Stay," said the
glittering porter, looking them fixedly in the face, "and I will show you
something. Do you see yonder," said he, "the rent which you made in the
church, that you might go out of it, without the slightest cause or
reason? and now, what do you want here? Go back to the narrow gate, wash
yourselves well in the fountain of repentance, in order to free
yourselves from some of the kingly blood, in which you steeped yourselves
formerly; bring some of that water to moisten the clay, to close up the
rent yonder, and then, and then only, you shall be welcome." But before
we had proceeded a rood farther towards the west, we heard a buzz amongst
the princes above, and every one, great and small, seized his arms, and
proceeded to harness himself as if for battle; and before we had time to
espy a place to flee to, the whole air became dark, and the city was more
deeply over-shadowed than during an eclipse; the thunder began to roar,
and the lightnings to dart forkedly, and a ceaseless shower of mortal
arrows, was directed from the gates below, against the catholic church;
and unless every one had had a shield in his hand to receive the fiery
darts, and unless the foundation stone had been too strong for any thing
to make an impression upon it, you would have seen the whole in
conflagration. But alas! this was but the prologue, or a foretaste of
what was to follow; for the darkness speedily became seven times blacker,
and _Belial_ himself appeared upon the densest cloud, and around him were
his choicest warriors, both terrestrial and infernal, to receive and
execute his will, on their particular sides. He had enjoined the Pope,
and the king of France, his other son, to destroy the church of England
and its queen; and the Turk and the Muscovite, to break to pieces the
other parts of the Church, and to slay the people; the queen and the
other princes, were by no means to be spared; and the Bible was to be
burned in spite of every thing. The first thing which the queen and the
other saints did, was to fall upon their knees, and complain of their
wrongs to the King of kings, in these words:--"_The spreading of his
wings covereth the extent of thy land_, _O Emmanuel_!" Isaiah 8. iii.
This complaint was answered by a voice, which said, "_resist the devil
and he will flee from you_;" and then ensued the hardest and most
stubborn engagement, which had ever been upon the earth. When the _sword
of the Spirit_ began to be waved, Belial and his infernal legions began
to retreat, and the Pope to falter. The king of France, it is true, held
out; yet even he nearly lost heart, for he saw the queen and her subjects
united and prosperous, whilst his own ships were sunk, his soldiers
slaughtered, and thousands of his subjects rebelling. The very Turk was
becoming as gentle as a lamb; but just at that moment my heavenly
associate quitted me, darting up towards the firmament, to myriads of
other shining powers, and my dream was at an end. Yes, just as the Pope
and the other terrestrial powers, were beginning to sneak away, and to
faint, and the potentates of hell to fall by tens of thousands, each
making, to my imagination's ear, as much noise as if a huge mountain had
been precipitated into the depths of the sea, my companion quitted me,
and there was an end of my dream; for what with the noise made by the
fiends, and the agitation which I felt at losing my companion, I awoke
from my sleep, and returned with the utmost reluctance to my sluggish
clod, thinking how noble and delightful it was to be a _free_ spirit, to
wander about in angelic company, quite secure, though seemingly in the
midst of peril. I had now nothing to console me, save the Muse, and she
being half angry, would do nothing more than bleat to me the following
strains.
The Perishing World.
O man, upon this building gaze,
The mansion of the human race,
The world terrestrial see!
Its architect's the King on high,
Who ne'er was born and ne'er will die--
The blest Divinity.
The world, its wall, its starlights all,
Its stores, where'er they lie,
Its wondrous brute variety,
Its reptiles, fish, and birds that fly,
And cannot number'd be,
The God above, to show his love,
Did give, O man, to thee.
For man, for man, whom he did plan,
God caus'd arise
This edifice,
Equal to heaven in all but size,
Beneath the sun so fair;
Then it he view'd, and that 'twas good
For man, he was aware.
Man only sought to know at first
Evil, and of the thing accursed
Obtain a sample small.
The sample grew a giantess,
'Tis easy from her size to guess
The whole her prey will fall.
Cellar and turret high,
Through hell's dark treachery,
Now reeling, rocking terribly,
In swooning pangs appear;
The orchards round, are only found
Vile sedge and weeds to bear;
The roof gives way, more, more each day,
The walls too, spite
Of all their might,
Have frightful cracks, down all their height,
Which coming ruin show;
The dragons tell, that danger fell,
Now lurks the house below.
O man! this building fair and proud,
From its foundation to the cloud,
Is all in dangerous plight;
Beneath thee quakes and shakes the ground;
'Tis all, e'en down to hell's profound,
A bog that scares the sight.
The sin man wrought, the deluge brought,
And without fail
A fiery gale,
Before which every thing shall quail,
His deeds shall waken now;
Worse evermore, till all is o'er,
Thy case, O world, shall grow.
There's one place free, yet, man for thee,
Where mercies reign,
A place to which thou may'st attain,
Seek there a residence to gain
Lest thou in caverns howl;
For save thou there shalt quick repair,
Woe to thy wretched soul!
Towards yon building turn your face!
Too strong by far is yonder place
To lose the victory.
'Tis better than the reeling world;
For all the ills by hell uphurl'd
It has a remedy.
Sublime it braves the wildest waves;
It is a refuge place
Impregnable to Belial's race,
With stones, emitting vivid rays,
Above its stately porch;
Itself, and those therein, compose
The universal church.
Though slaves of sin we long have been,
With faith sincere
We shall win pardon there;
Then in let's press, O, brethren dear,
And claim our dignity!
By doing so, we saints below
And saints on high shall be.
A Vision of Death in his Palace Below.
In one of the long, black, chilly nights of winter, when it was much
warmer in a kitchen of Glyn-cywarch, than on the summit of Cadair Idris,
and much more pleasant to be in a snug chamber, with a warm bed-fellow,
than in a shroud in the church yard, I was mussing upon some discourses
which had passed between me and a neighbour, upon _the shortness of human
life_, and how certain every one is of dying, and how uncertain as to the
time. Whilst thus engaged, having but newly laid my head down upon the
pillow, and being about half awake, I felt a great weight coming
stealthily upon me, from the crown of my head to my heel, so that I could
not stir a finger, nor any thing except my tongue, and beheld a lad upon
my breast, and a lass mounted upon his back. On looking sharply, I
guessed, from the warm smell which came from him, his clammy locks, and
his gummy eyes, that the lad must be _master Sleep_. "Pray, sir," said
I, squealing, "what have I done to you, that you bring that witch here to
suffocate me?" "Hush," said he, "it is only my sister _Nightmare_; we
are both going to visit our brother _Death_, and have need of a third,
and lest you should resist, we have come upon you without warning, as he
himself will sometime; therefore you must come, whether you will or not."
"Alas!" said I, "must I die?" "O no," said _Nightmare_; "we will spare
you this time." "But with your favour," said I, "your brother Death
never spared any one yet who was brought within reach of his dart; the
fellow even ventured to fling a fall with the Lord of Life himself,
though it is true he gained very little by his daring." At these words
_Nightmare_ arose full of wrath and departed. "Hey," said _Sleep_, "come
away, and you shall have no cause to repent of your journey." "Well,"
said I, "may there never be night to _saint Sleep_, and may _Nightmare_
never obtain any other place to crouch upon than the top of an awl,
unless you return me to where you found me." Then away he went with me,
over woods and precipices, over oceans and valleys, over castles and
towers, rivers and crags; and where did we descend, but by one of the
gates of the daughters of Belial, on the posterior side of the _city of
Perdition_, and I could there perceive, that the three gates of Perdition
contracted into one on the hinder side, and opened into the same place--a
place foggy, cold, and pestilential, replete with an unwholesome vapour,
and clouds, lowering and terrible. "Pray, sir," said I, "what dungeon of
a place is this?" "_The chambers of Death_," said _Sleep_. I had
scarcely time to enquire, before I heard some people crying, some
screaming, some groaning, some talking deliriously, some uttering
blasphemies in a feeble tone: others in great agony, as if about to give
up the ghost. Here and there one, after a mighty shout would become
silent, and then forthwith I could hear a key revolving in a lock; I
turned at the sound to look for the door, and by dint of long gazing, I
could see tens of thousands of doors, apparently far off though close by
my side notwithstanding. "Please to inform me, master Sleep," said I,
"to what place these doors open?" "They open," he replied, "into the
_land of Oblivion_, a vast country under the rule of my brother Death;
and the great wall here, is the limit of the immense eternity." As I
looked I could see a little death at each door, all with different arms,
and different names, though evidently they were all subjects of the same
king. Notwithstanding which, there was much contention between them
concerning the sick; for the one wished to snatch the sick through his
door, and the other would fain have him through his own. On drawing
near, we could see above every door, the name of the death written, who
kept it; and likewise by every door, hundreds of various things left
scattered about, denoting the haste of those who went through. Over one
door I could see _Famine_, though purses and full bags were lying on the
ground beside it, and boxes nailed up, standing near. "That," said he,
"is the gate of the _misers_." "To whom," said I, "do these rags
belong?" "Principally to misers," he replied; "but there are some there
belonging to lazy idlers, and to ballad singers, and to others, poor in
every thing, but spirit, who preferred starvation to begging." In the
next door was the death of the _Ruling Passion_, and parallel with it I
could hear many voices, as of men in the extremity of cold. By this door
were many books, some pots and flaggons, here and there a staff and a
walking stick, some compasses and charts, and shipping tackle. "This is
the road by which scholars go," said I. "Some scholars go by it," said
he, "solitary, helpless wretches, whose relations have stripped them of
their last article of raiment; but people of various other descriptions
go by it also. Those," said he, (speaking of the pots,) "are the relics
of jolly companions, whose feet are freezing under benches, whilst their
heads are boiling with drink and uproar; and the things yonder belong to
travellers of snowy mountains, and to traffickers in the North sea."
Next at hand was a meagre skeleton of a figure, called the _death of
Fear_. Through his exterior you might see that he did not possess any
heart; and by his door there were bags, and chests also, and locks and
castles. By this gate went usurers, bad governors and tyrants, and some
of the murderers, but the plurality of the latter were driven past to the
next gate, where there was a death called _Gallows_, with his cord ready
for their necks.
Next was to be seen the _death of Love_, and by his feet were hundreds of
instruments, and books of music, and verses, and love letters, and also
ointments and colors to beautify the countenance, and a thousand other
embellishing wares, and also some swords. "With some of those swords,"
said my companion, "bandits have been slain whilst fighting for women,
and with others, love-lorn creatures have stabbed themselves." I could
perceive that this death was purblind.
At the next door, was a death who had the most repulsive figure of all:
his entire liver was consumed. He was called the _death of Envy_. "This
one," said Sleep, "assaults losing gamesters, slanderers, and many a
female rider, who repineth at the law which rendered the wife subject to
her husband." "Pray, sir," said I, "what is the meaning of female
rider?" "Female rider," said he, "is the term used here, for the woman
who would ride her husband, her neighbours, and her country too, if
possible, and the end of her long riding will be, that she will ride the
Devil, from that door, down to hell."
Next stood the door of the _death of Ambition_, and of those who lift
their nostrils on high, and break their shins for want of looking beneath
their feet. Beside this door were crowns, sceptres, banners, all sorts
of patents and commissions, and all kinds of heraldric and warlike arms.
But before I could look on any more of these countless doors, I heard a
voice commanding me by my name to prepare. At this word, I could feel
myself beginning to melt, like a snow ball in the heat of the sun;
whereupon my master gave me some soporific drink, so that I fell asleep,
but by the time I awoke, he had conveyed me to a considerable distance,
on the other side of the wall. I found myself in a valley of pitchy
darkness, and as it seemed to me, limitless. At the end of a little
time, I could see by a dim light, like that of a dying candle,
innumerable human shades--some on foot, and some on horseback, running
through one another like the wind, silently and with wonderful solemnity.
It was a desert, bare, and blasted country, without grass, or vegetation,
or woods, and without animals, with the exception of deadly monsters, and
venomous reptiles of every kind; serpents, snakes, lice, toads,
maw-worms, locusts, ear-wigs, and the like, which all exist on human
corruption. Through myriads of shades, and creeping things, graves,
sepulchres, and cemeteries, we proceeded, without interruption, to
observe the country. At last I perceived some of the shades turning and
looking upon me; and suddenly, notwithstanding the great silence that had
prevailed before, there was a whispering from one to the other that there
was a _living man_ at hand. "A living man," said one; "a living man,"
said the other; and they came thronging about me like caterpillars from
every corner. "How did you come hither, sirrah?" said a little morkin of
a death who was there. "Truly sir," said I, "I know no more than
yourself." "What do they call you?" he demanded. "Call me what you
please, here in your own country," I replied, "but at home I am called
_the Sleeping Bard_."
At that word I beheld a crooked old man, with a double head like to a
rough-barked thorn tree, raising himself erect, and looking upon me worse
than the black devil himself; and lo! without saying a word, he hurled a
large human skull at my head--many thanks to a tombstone which shielded
me. "Pray be quiet, sir," said I. "I am but a stranger, who was never
here before, and you may be sure I will never return, if I can once reach
home again." "I will give you cause to remember having been here," said
he; and attacked me with a thigh-bone, like a very devil, whilst I
avoided his blows as well as I could. "By heavens," said I, "this is a
most inhospitable country to strangers. Is there a justice of the peace
here?" "Peace!" said he, "what peace do you deserve, who will not let
people rest in their graves?" "Pray, sir," said I, "may I be allowed to
know your name, because I am not aware of ever having disturbed any one
in this country." "Sirrah," said he, "know that not you are the Sleeping
Bard, but that I am that person; and I have been allowed to rest here for
nine hundred years, by every one but yourself." And he attacked me
again.
"Forbear, my brother," said Merddyn, who was near at hand, "be not too
hot; rather be thankful to him for keeping an honorable remembrance of
your name upon earth." "Great honor forsooth," said he, "I shall receive
from such a blockhead as this. Sirrah! can you sing in the
four-and-twenty measures? Can you carry the pedigree of Gog and Magog,
and the genealogy of Brutus ap Sylfius, up to a millenium previous to the
fall of Troy? Can you narrate when, and what will be the end of the
combats betwixt the lion and the eagle, and betwixt the dragon and the
red deer?" "Hey, hey! let me ask him a question," said another, who was
seated beside a large cauldron which was boiling, and going, bubble,
bubble, over a fire. "Come nearer," said he, "what is the meaning of
this?"
"I till the judgment day
Upon the earth shall stray;
None knows for certainty
Whether fish or flesh I be."
"I will request the favor of your name, sir," said I, "that I may answer
you in a suitable manner." "I," said he, "am Taliesin, {49} the prince
of the Bards of the West, and that is a piece of my composition." "I
know not," said I, "what could be your meaning, unless it was, that the
yellow plague {50} which destroyed Maelgwn of Gwynedd, put an end to you
on the sea-shore, and that your body was divided amongst the crows and
the fishes." "Peace, fool!" said he, "I was alluding to my two callings,
of man of the law and poet. Please to tell me, has a lawyer more
similitude to a raven, than a poet to a whale? How many a one doth a
single lawyer divest of his flesh, to swell out his own craw; and with
what indifference does he extract the blood, and leave a man half alive!
And as for the poet, where is the fish which is able to swallow like him?
he is drinking oceans of liquor at all times, but the briny sea itself
would not slack his thirst. And provided a man be a poet and a lawyer,
how is it possible to know whether he be fish or flesh, especially if he
be a courtier to boot, as I was, and obliged to vary his taste to every
ones palate. But tell me," said he, "whether there are at present, any
of those fellows upon the earth?" "There's plenty of them," said I; "if
one can patch together any nonsensical derry, he is styled a graduate
bard. But as for the others; there is such a plague of lawyers, petty
attornies, and scribes, that the locusts of Egypt bore light upon the
country, in comparison with them. In your time, sir, there were but
bargains of tofts and crofts, and a hand's breadth of writing for a farm
of a hundred pounds, and a raising of cairns and crosses, as memorials of
the purchase and boundaries. There is no longer any such security, but
there is far more craft and deceit, and a tombstone's breadth of written
parchment to secure the bargain; and for all that, it is a wonder if a
flaw be not in it, or said to be at least." "Well then," said Taliesin,
"I should not be worth a straw in the world at present. I am better
where I am. Truth will never be had where there are many poets, nor fair
dealing where there are many lawyers; no, nor health where there are many
physicians." At this moment, a little grey-headed hobgoblin, who had
heard that a living man was arrived, flung himself at my feet, weeping
abundantly. "Dear me," said I, "what are you?" "One who is grievously
wronged every day in the world," said he. "May God move your soul to
procure justice for me." "What is your name?" said I. "I am called
_Somebody_," he replied, "and there is scarcely a piece of pimping, or a
calumny, or a lie, or tale, to set people at loggerheads, but must be
laid upon me. 'Verily,' says one, 'she is a prodigious fine girl, and
she was praising you before somebody, notwithstanding that some very
great person is paying his suit to her.' 'I heard somebody,' says
another, 'reckoning that this estate was mortgaged nine hundred pounds
deep.' 'I saw some one yesterday,' says the beggar, 'with a chequered
slop, like a sailor, who had come with a large ship load of corn, to the
neighbouring port.' And thus every ragged dog mangles me for his own
wicked purposes. Some call me Friend--'I was informed by a friend,' says
one, 'that so and so has no intention of leaving a farthing to his wife,
and that there is no affection between them.' Some others vilify me yet
more, and call me Bird--'A bird whistled in my ear, that there are bad
practices going on there,' say they. It is true, some call me by the
more respectable name of Old Person; yet, not half the omens, prophecies,
and counsels, which are attributed to the Old Person, belong to me. I
have never bidden people to follow the old road, provided the new one be
better, nor a hundred similar things. But Somebody is my common name,"
he continued, "him you will most frequently hear, to have been concerned
in every atrocious matter. Because, ask a person wherever a vile,
slanderous falsehood has been uttered, who it was who said it, and he
will reply, 'Truly I don't know who, but somebody in the company said
it;' question then every one in the company concerning the fable, and
every one will say he heard it from somebody, but no one knows from whom.
Is not this a shameful injury?" he demanded. "Be so good as to inform
every one whom you may hear naming me, that I have never said any one of
these things, nor have ever invented nor uttered a lie to slander any
one, nor a story to set relations by the ears; that I do not go near
them; that I know nothing of their history, nor of their affairs, nor of
their accursed secrets; and that they ought not to fling their wickedness
upon me, but on their own corrupt brains."
At this moment there came a little death, one of the secretaries of the
king, desiring to know my name, and commanding master Sleep, to carry me
instantly before the king. I was compelled to go, though utterly against
my will, by the power, which, like a whirlwind carried me away, betwixt
high and low, thousands of miles back to the left hand, until we came
again in sight of the boundary wall, and reached a narrow corner. Here
we perceived an immense, frowning, ruinous palace, open at the top,
reaching to the wall where were the innumerable doors, all of which led
to this huge, terrific court. The walls were constructed with the sculls
of men, which grinned horribly with their teeth. The clay was black, and
was prepared with tears and sweat; and the mortar on the outside was
variegated with phlegm and pus, and on the inside with black-red blood.
On the top of each turret, you might see a little death, with a smoking
heart stuck on the point of his dart.
Around the palace was a wood, consisting of a few poisonous yews and
deadly cypresses, and in these, owls, blood crows, vultures and the like
were nestling; and croaking continually for flesh, though the whole place
was nothing but a stinking shamble. We entered the gate. All the
pillars of the hall were made of human thigh bones; the pillars of the
parlour were of shank bones; and the floors were one continued layer of
every species of offal. It was not long before I came in sight of a vast
and frightful altar, where I beheld the king of Terrors swallowing human
flesh and blood, and a thousand petty deaths, from every hole, feeding
him with fresh, warm flesh. "Behold," said the death who brought me
there, addressing himself to the king, "a spark, whom I found in the
midst of the land of Oblivion; he came so light footed, that your majesty
never tasted a morsel of him." "How can that be?" said the king, and
opened his jaws as wide as an earthquake to swallow me. Whereupon I
turned all trembling to Sleep. "It was I," said Sleep, "who brought him
here." "Well," said the meagre, grizly king, turning to me, "for my
brother Sleep's sake, you shall be permitted to return this time, but
beware of me the next." After having employed himself for a considerable
time in casting carcasses into his insatiable paunch, he caused his
subjects to be called together, and moved from the altar to a terrific
throne of exceeding height, to pronounce judgment on the prisoners newly
arrived. In an instant came innumerable multitudes of the dead, making
their obeisance to their king, and taking their stations in remarkable
order. And lo! king Death was in his regal vest of flaming scarlet,
covered all over with figures of women and children weeping, and men
uttering groans; about his head was a black-red three-cornered cap (which
his friend Lucifer had sent as a present to him,) and upon its corners
were written _misery_, _wailing_, and _woe_. Above his head were
thousands of representations of battles on sea and land, towns burning,
the earth opening, and the great water of the deluge; and beneath his
feet nothing was to be seen but the crowns and sceptres of the kings whom
he had overcome from the beginning. On his right hand Fate was sitting,
seemingly engaged in reading, with a murky look, a huge volume which was
before him; and on his left was an old man called _Time_, licking
innumerable threads of gold, and silver, and copper, and very many of
iron. Some few of the threads were growing better towards their end, and
thousands growing worse. Along the threads were hours, days, and years;
and Fate, according as his volume directed him, was continually breaking
the threads of life, and opening the doors of the boundary wall, betwixt
the two worlds.
We had not looked around us long, before we heard four fiddlers, newly
dead, summoned to the bar. "How comes it," said the king of Terrors,
"that loving merriment as ye do, ye kept not on the other side of the
gulf, for there has never been any merriment on this side." "We have
never done," said one of the musicians, "harm to any body, but have
rendered people joyous, and have taken quietly what they gave us for our
pains." Said Death, "did you never keep any one from his work, and cause
him to lose his time; or did you never keep people from church? ha!" "O
no!" said another, "perhaps now and then on a Sunday, after service, we
may have kept some in the public house till the next morning, or during
summer tide, may have kept them dancing in the ring on the green all
night; for sure enough, we were more liked, and more lucky in obtaining a
congregation than the parson." "Away, away with these fellows to the
country of Despair!" said the terrific king, "bind the four back to back
and cast them to their customers, to dance bare-footed on floors of
glowing heat, and to amble to all eternity without either praise or
music."