omfort now I have
And have it shall till death.

That was the work I was about
When hands on me they laid.
'Twas this for which they plucked me out
And vilely to me said,

'You heretic, deceiver, come,
To prison you must go,
You preach abroad, and keep not home,
You are the Church's foe.'

Wherefore to prison they me sent,
Where to this day I lie,
And can with very much content
For my profession die.

The prison very sweet to me
Hath been since I came here,
And so would also hanging be
If God would there appear.

To them that here for evil lie
The place is comfortless;
But not to me, because that I
Lie here for righteousness.

The truth and I were both here cast
Together, and we do
Lie arm in arm, and so hold fast
Each other, this is true.

Who now dare say we throw away
Our goods or liberty,
When God's most holy Word doth say
We gain thus much thereby?"

It will be seen that though Bunyan's verses are certainly not high-class
poetry, they are very far removed from doggerel. Nothing indeed that
Bunyan ever wrote, however rugged the rhymes and limping the metre, can
be so stigmatized. The rude scribblings on the margins of the copy of
the "Book of Martyrs," which bears Bunyan's signature on the title-pages,
though regarded by Southey as "undoubtedly" his, certainly came from a
later and must less instructed pen. And as he advanced in his literary
career, his claim to the title of a poet, though never of the highest,
was much strengthened. The verses which diversify the narrative in the
Second Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" are decidedly superior to those
in the First Part, and some are of high excellence. Who is ignorant of
the charming little song of the Shepherd Boy in the Valley of
Humiliation, "in very mean clothes, but with a very fresh and
well-favoured countenance, and wearing more of the herb called Heartsease
in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet?"--

"He that is down need fear no fall;
He that is low, no pride;
He that is humble, ever shall
Have God to be his guide.

I am content with what I have,
Little be it or much,
And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
Because Thou savest such.

Fulness to such a burden is
That go on Pilgrimage,
Here little, and hereafter Bliss
Is best from age to age."

Bunyan reaches a still higher flight in Valian