With heavy heart I sought th’ infernal coast
And saw the vale of everlasting woes,
The awful home of fiends and of the lost
Where torments rage and never grant repose—
A lake of fire whence horrid flames arose
And whither tended every wayward path
Its prey to lead ’midst cruel dragon-foes;
Yet, though I wandered through withouten scath,
A world I’d spurn, to view again that scene of wrath.
With heavy heart oft I recall to mind
How many a loving friend unwarnèd fell
To bottomless perdition, there to find
A dread abode where he for aye must dwell;
Who erst were men are now like hounds of Hell
And with unceasing energy entice
To dire combustion all with wily spell,
And to themselves have ta’en the devils’ guise,
Their power and skill all ill to do in every wise.
With heavy heart I roamed the dismal land
That is ordained the sinner’s end to be;
What mighty waves surge wild on every hand!
What gloomy shadows haunt its canopy!
What horrors fall on high and mean degree!
How hideous is the mien of its fell lords,
What shrieks rise from that boundless glowing sea,
How fierce the curses of the damnèd hordes,
No mortal ken can e’er conceive or paint in words.
With heavy heart we mourn true friends or kin
And grieve the loss of home, of liberty,
Of that good name which all aspire to win
Or health and ease and sweet tranquility;
When dim, dark clouds enshroud our memory
And pass ’tween us and heaven’s gracious smiles,
’Tis sadder far to wake to misery
And feel that Pleasure now no more beguiles,
That sin has left nought but the wounds of its base wiles.
With heavy heart the valiantest of men
Lays low his head beneath th’ impending doom;
In terror he descends death’s awsome glen;
While there appear flashing through the gloom
The lurid shades of deeds which in the bloom
Of youth he dared; at last the conscience cries
With ruthless voice: “There’s life beyond the tomb;”
His dying thoughts all vanities despise
As on the threshold of Eternity he lies.
The heavy heart that suffers all such grief
May, while the breath of life doth still remain,
Hope for a joyous peace and blest relief;
But if grim Death his fated victim gain,
Woe’s him that entereth the realm of pain—
For e’er on him its frowning portals close,
Nor gleam of hope shall he perceive again,
For in that vast eternal night he knows
A woe awaits that far surpasseth earthly woes.
The heavy heart beneath its weight is crushed,
And at its very name—Damnation writ,
All men their vain and froward clamors hushed;
But when within the fiery gaping pit
Whose flaming ramparts none will ever quit,
Above the thunder’s roar th’ accursed host
Raise such loud cries, it passeth human wit
To dream of aught so dire, for at the most,
All woes of earth as pleasures seem unto the lost.
From every vain complaining, cease, my friend,
Since thou art yet not numbered with the dead
But turn thy thoughts unto thy destined end,
Behold thy Fates spin out the vital thread,
And oftèn as thy mind to Hell be led,
To contemplate the doleful gloom aglow,
There will forthwith possess thee such a dread,
Which Christ’s unbounded mercy doth bestow,
Lest thou be doomed to that eternal realm of woe.