He spent [after that] seven years in the world teaching people, and telling them the right religion, and all his family turned Catholics, and it was the minister's son who composed the dán or poem.
THE DÁN OF THE MINISTER'S SON.
The body, it lies in the sleep of the dead,
And the candles above it are burning red;
The old women sit, all silent and dreaming,
But the young woman's cheeks with tears are streaming.
Oh, listen, listen, and hear the story
Of what are the sins that shut out from glory.
Promises, lies, penurious hoarding,
How troubled, how cursed, how damned the story!
But it was there that I saw the wonder!
Three great piles of fire,
And the least fire it rose in a spire
Like fifteen tons of turf on fire,
Or a burning mountain, higher and higher.
It was not long until I saw
The three great mastiffs,
Their gullets opened,
And their a-burning
Like great wax candles
In a mountain hollow,
Waiting for my poor soul
To tear and to swallow,
To bring down to hell's foulness
In anguish to wallow.
I was taken to the gates of hell,
And the hair was burnt off my forehead,
And a sieve of holes was put through my middle;
It was then it stood to me, that night I fasted,
And wore the garb of the Blessed Virgin,
Or my flesh and my blood had been burned to a puff of ashes.
It was then the jury of the twelve sat on me,
Their evil will than their good will was stronger,
And all that I did since my days of childhood
Was writ upon paper in black and white there;
One paper in my hand, on the ground another,
To conceal a crime I had no power.
On turning round of me towards the right-hand side,
I beheld the noble, blessed Justice
Beneath his bright mantle,
And he asked of me, with soft, blessed words,
"Where was I living when I was on the earth,
And whether I were not the poor soul who had to go to the bar."