Page:The Pennyles Pilgrimage.djvu/50

 Our Mandeville, Primaleon, Don Quixote, Great Amadis, or Huon, travelled not As I have done, or been where I have been, Or heard and seen, what I have heard and seen; Nor Britain's Odcombe (Zany, brave Ulysses) In all his ambling, saw the like as this is. I was in (would I could describe it well) A dark, light, pleasant, profitable hell, And as by water I was wafted in, I thought that I in Charon's boat had been, But being at the entrance landed thus, Three men there (instead of Cerberus) Conveyed me in, in each one hand a light To guide us in that vault of endless night, There young and old with glim'ring candles burning Dig, delve, and labour, turning and returning, Some in a hole with baskets and with bags, Resembling furies, or infernal hags: There one like Tantalus feeding, and there one, Like Sisyphus he rolls the restless stone. Yet all I saw was pleasure mixed with profit, Which proved it to be no tormenting Tophet: