I continue writing. It's been going at a snail's pace, but the end is in sight.....down to the last four pages. Yesterday was a Keach party, and tonight it's Bunyan. I just read through his "Apology" for Pilgrim's Progress for the first time (an embarrassing confession made even more so by the fact that it's less than 240 lines long), and I absolutely loved his concluding stanza. It's both a shameless plug for his own novel and also a daydreamy tribute to the pleasures of reading literature in a Christian context. Leaving it here for further enjoyment.
This Book is writ in such a Dialect
As may the minds of listless men affect:
It seems a novelty, and yet contains
Nothing but sound and honest Gospel strains.
Would’st thou divert thyself from Melancholy?
Would’st thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly?
Would’st thou read Riddles, and their Explanation?
Or else be drowned in thy Contemplation?
Dost thou love picking meat? Or would’st thou see
A man i’ th’ Clouds, and hear him speak to thee?
Would’st thou be in a Dream, and yet not sleep?
Or would’st thou in a moment laugh and weep?
Wouldest thou lose thyself, and catch no harm,
And find thyself again without a charm?
Would’st read thyself, and read thou know’st not what,
And yet know whether thou art blest or not,
By reading the same lines? O then come hither,
And lay my Book, thy Head, and Heart together.
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