Comparison.
Some souls are like unto this blank or sheet,
Though not in whiteness. The next man they meet,
If wise or fool, debauched or deluder,
Or what you will, the dangerous intruder
May write thereon, to cause that man to err
In doctrine or in life, with blot and blur.
Nor will that soul conceal from who observes,
But show how foul it is, wherein it swerves.
A reading man may know who was the writer,
And, by the hellish nonsense, the inditer.
XLIX.
UPON FIRE.
Who falls into the fire shall burn with heat;
While those remote scorn from it to retreat.
Yea, while those in it, cry out, O! I burn,
Some farther off those cries to laughter turn.
Comparison.
While some tormented are in hell for sin;
On earth some greatly do delight therein.
Yea, while some make it echo with their cry,
Others count it a fable and a lie.[38]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Bunyan's poem in the Holy War.
[2] On the leaf following the title to One Thing is Needful, &c., by John Bunyan, 1688. A rare little 32mo, published by the author, in possession of the Editor.