The Sleeping Bard
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Ellis Wynne >> The Sleeping Bard
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The Heavy Heart.
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 track
Is a flaming lake,
Where dragon and snake
With 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 vividly
The 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 trepan
To Hell's dismal revels.
When he reach'd the pit he a fiend became,
In face and in frame,
And in mind the same
As 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 relate
Which will ne'er abate
But increase for ever,
No power have I, nor others I wot:
Words cannot be got;
The shapes and the spot
Can 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 peace
And all things that please
The heaven under.
At losing memory, beauty and grace,
Heart-heaviness
For a little space
Can cause no wonder.
Heavy's the heart of man when first
He awakes from his worldly dream accursed,
Fain would be freed from his awful load
Of sin, and be reconciled with his God;
When he feels for pleasures and luxuries
Disgust arise,
From the agonies
Of the ferment unruly,
Through which he becomes regenerate,
Of Christ the mate,
From his sinful state
Springing 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 dun
The eternal one
Beholds 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 side
Of the wall abide--
At every tide
'Tis an outlet cranny.
But there's a grief beyond the bier;
Hope will ne'er
Its 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 woe
The lost ones know,
And undergo
In the nether regions;
How wretched the man who exil'd to Hell,
In Hell must dwell,
And curse and yell
With the Hellish legions!
At nought, that may ever betide thee, fret
If at Hell thou art not arrived yet;
But thither, I rede thee, in mind repair
Full oft, and observantly wander there;
Musing intense, after reading me,
Of the flaming sea,
Will speedily thee
Convert by appalling.
Frequent remembrance of the black deep
Thy soul will keep,
Thou erring sheep,
From thither falling.
Footnotes:
{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.
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