The Sleeping Bard; Or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell — John Shaqi
The Sleeping Bard; Or, Visions of the World, Death, and HellWynne, Ellis
General
The Sleeping Bard; Or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell
Wynne, Ellis
Allegories; Christian life; Religious literature, Welsh; Welsh literature -- 18th century; Welsh literature -- Translations into English
darts, and unless the foundation stone had been too strong for any thing
to make an impression upon it, you would have seen the whole in
conflagration. But alas! this was but the prologue, or a foretaste of
what was to follow; for the darkness speedily became seven times blacker,
and _Belial_ himself appeared upon the densest cloud, and around him were
his choicest warriors, both terrestrial and infernal, to receive and
execute his will, on their particular sides. He had enjoined the Pope,
and the king of France, his other son, to destroy the church of England
and its queen; and the Turk and the Muscovite, to break to pieces the
other parts of the Church, and to slay the people; the queen and the
other princes, were by no means to be spared; and the Bible was to be
burned in spite of every thing. The first thing which the queen and the
other saints did, was to fall upon their knees, and complain of their
wrongs to the King of kings, in these words:--"_The spreading of his
wings covereth the extent of thy land_, _O Emmanuel_!" Isaiah 8. iii.
This complaint was answered by a voice, which said, "_resist the devil
and he will flee from you_;" and then ensued the hardest and most
stubborn engagement, which had ever been upon the earth. When the _sword
of the Spirit_ began to be waved, Belial and his infernal legions began
to retreat, and the Pope to falter. The king of France, it is true, held
out; yet even he nearly lost heart, for he saw the queen and her subjects
united and prosperous, whilst his own ships were sunk, his soldiers
slaughtered, and thousands of his subjects rebelling. The very Turk was
becoming as gentle as a lamb; but just at that moment my heavenly
associate quitted me, darting up towards the firmament, to myriads of
other shining powers, and my dream was at an end. Yes, just as the Pope
and the other terrestrial powers, were beginning to sneak away, and to
faint, and the potentates of hell to fall by tens of thousands, each
making, to my imagination's ear, as much noise as if a huge mountain had
been precipitated into the depths of the sea, my companion quitted me,
and there was an end of my dream; for what with the noise made by the
fiends, and the agitation which I felt at losing my companion, I awoke
from my sleep, and returned with the utmost reluctance to my sluggish
clod, thinking how noble and delightful it was to be a _free_ spirit, to
wander about in angelic company, quite secure, though seemingly in the
midst of peril. I had now nothing to console me, save the Muse, and she
being half angry, would do nothing more than bleat to me the following
strains.
The Perishing World.
O man, upon this building gaze,
The mansion of the human race,
The world terrestrial see!
Its architect's the King on high,
Who ne'er was born and ne'er will die--
The blest Divinity.
The world, its wall, its starlights all,
Its stores, where'er they lie,
Its wondrous brute variety,
Its reptiles, fish, and birds that fly,
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