Heavy’s the heart with wandering below,And with seeing the things in the country of woe;Seeing lost men and the fiendish race,In their very horrible prison place;Seeing that the end of the crooked trackIs a flaming lake,Where dragon and snakeWith rage are swelling.I’d not, o’er a thousand worlds to reign,Behold again,Though safe from pain,The infernal dwelling.
Heavy’s my heart, whilst so vividlyThe place is yet in my memory;To see so many, to me well known,Thither unwittingly sinking down.To-day a hell-dog is yesterday’s man,And he has no plan,But others to trepanTo Hell’s dismal revels.When he reach’d the pit he a fiend became,In face and in frame,And in mind the sameAs the very devils.
Heavy’s the heart with viewing the bed,Where sin has the meed it has merited;What frightful taunts from forked tongue,On gentle and simple there are flung.The ghastliness of the damned things to state.Or the pains to relateWhich will ne’er abateBut increase for ever,No power have I, nor others I wot:Words cannot be got;The shapes and the spotCan be pictured never.
Heavy’s the heart, as none will deny,At losing one’s friend or the maid of one’s eye;At losing one’s freedom, one’s land or wealth;At losing one’s fame, or alas! one’s health;At losing leisure; at losing ease;At losing peaceAnd all things that pleaseThe heaven under.At losing memory, beauty and grace,Heart-heavinessFor a little spaceCan cause no wonder.
Heavy’s the heart of man when firstHe awakes from his worldly dream accursed,Fain would be freed from his awful loadOf sin, and be reconciled with his God;When he feels for pleasures and luxuriesDisgust arise,From the agoniesOf the ferment unruly,Through which he becomes regenerate,Of Christ the mate,From his sinful stateSpringing blithe and holy.
Heavy’s the heart of the best of mankind,Upon the bed of death reclined;In mind and body ill at ease,Betwixt remorse and the disease,Vext by sharp pangs and dreading more.O mortal poor!O dreadful hour!Horrors surround him!To the end of the vain world he has won;And dark and dunThe eternal oneBeholds beyond him.
Heavy’s the heart, the pressure below,Of all the griefs I have mentioned now;But were they together all met in a mass,There’s one grief still would all surpass;Hope frees from each woe, while we this sideOf the wall abide—At every tide’Tis an outlet cranny.But there’s a grief beyond the bier;Hope will ne’erIts victims cheer,That cheers so many.
Heavy’s the heart therewith that’s fraught;How heavy is mine at merely the thought!Our worldly woes, however hard,Are trifles when with that compared:That woe—which is known not here—that woeThe lost ones know,And undergoIn the nether regions;How wretched the man who exil’d to Hell,In Hell must dwell,And curse and yellWith the Hellish legions!
At nought, that may ever betide thee, fretIf at Hell thou art not arrived yet;But thither, I rede thee, in mind repairFull oft, and observantly wander there;Musing intense, after reading me,Of the flaming sea,Will speedily theeConvert by appalling.Frequent remembrance of the black deepThy soul will keep,Thou erring sheep,From thither falling.
[3]Probably Cheshire; the North Welsh commonly call Chester Caer.
[23]It is the custom of Mahometans, to lay aside their sandals, before entering the Mosque.
[49]Taliesin lived in the sixth century; he was a foundling, discovered in his infancy lying in a coracle, on a salmon-weir, in the domain of Elphin, a prince of North Wales, who became his patron. During his life he arrogated to himself a supernatural descent and understanding, and for at least a thousand years after his death he was regarded by the descendants of the Ancient Britons, as a prophet or something more. The poems which he produced procured for him the title of “Bardic King;” they display much that is vigorous and original, but are disfigured by mysticism and extravagant metaphor. The four lines which he is made to quote above are from his Hanes, or History, one of the most spirited of his pieces. When Elis Wynn represents him as sitting by a cauldron in Hades, he alludes to a wild legend concerning him, to the effect, that he imbibed awen or poetical genius whilst employed in watching “the seething pot” of the sorceress Cridwen, which legend has much in common with one of the Irish legends about Fin Macoul, which is itself nearly identical with one in the Edda, describing the manner in which Sigurd Fafnisbane became possessed of supernatural wisdom.
[50]A dreadful pestilence, which ravaged Gwynedd or North Wales in 560. Amongst its victims was the king of the country, the celebrated Maelgwn, son of Caswallon Law Hir.
[84]Llyn Tegid, or the lake of Beauty, in the neighbourhood of Bala.
[93]The reader is left to guess what description of people these prisoners were. They were probably violent fifth monarchy preachers.
[100]An active London Magistrate, treacherously murdered by a gang of papist conspirators in the reign of Charles the Second.
[108]A celebrated Welsh poet, who flourished in the thirteenth century. A short account of him will be found in Owen’s Cambrian Biography.