A Memorable Fancy IV.
An Angel came to me and said: 'O pitiable foolish young man!
O horrible! O dreadful state! consider the hot burning dungeon
thou art preparing for thyself to all eternity, to which thou art
going in such career.'
I said: 'perhaps you will be willing to shew me my eternal
lot & we will contemplate together upon it and see whether your
lot or mine is most desirable.'
So he took me thro' a stable & thro' a church & down into
the church vault at the end of which was a mill: thro' the mill
we went, and came to a cave: down the winding cavern we groped
our tedious way till a void boundless as a nether sky appear'd
beneath us & we held by the roots of trees and hung over this
immensity; but I said, 'if you please we will commit ourselves
to this void, and see whether providence is here also, if you
will not, I will?' but he answer'd: 'do not presume, O young-man, but
as we here remain, behold thy lot which will soon appear when the
darkness passes away.'
So I remain'd with him, sitting in the twisted root of
an oak; he was suspended in a fungus, which hung with the head
downward into the deep.
By degrees we beheld the infinite Abyss, fiery as the smoke
of a burning city; beneath us at an immense distance, was the sun,
black but shining; round it were fiery tracks on which revolv'd
vast spiders, crawling after their prey; which flew, or rather
swum, in the infinite deep, in the most terrific shapes of animals
sprung from corruption; & the air was full of them, & seem'd
composed of them: these are Devils, and are called Powers of the
air. I now asked my companion which was my eternal lot? he said,
'between the black & white spiders.'
But now, from between the black & white spiders, a cloud and
fire burst and rolled thro' the deep black'ning all beneath, so
that the nether deep grew black as a sea, & rolled with a terrible
noise; beneath us was nothing now to be seen but a black tempest,
till looking east between the clouds & the waves, we saw a
cataract of blood mixed with fire, and not many stones' throw from
us appear'd and sunk again the scaly fold of a monstrous serpent;
at last, to the east, distant about three degrees appear'd a fiery
crest above the waves; slowly it reared like a ridge of golden
rocks, till we discover'd two globes of crimson fire, from which
the sea fled away in clouds of smoke; and now we saw, it was the
head of Leviathan; his forehead was divided into streaks of green
& purple like those on a tyger's forehead: soon we saw his mouth &
red gills hang just above the raging foam tinging the black deep
with beams of blood, advancing toward us with all the
fury of a spiritual existence.
My friend the Angel climb'd up from his station into the mill;
I remain'd alone, & then this appearance was no more, but I found
myself sitting on a pleasant bank beside a river by moonlight,
hearing a harper who sung to the harp; & his theme was: (...)
(......)
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