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.