StoryTitle("caps", "The Author's Apology for His~Book") ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "When at the first I took my pen in hand ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thus for to write, I did not understand ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That I at all should make a little book ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In such a mode: nay, I had undertook ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To make another; which, when almost done, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Before I was aware I this begun. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And thus it was: I, writing of the way ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And race of saints in this our gospel-day, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Fell suddenly into an allegory ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "About their journey, and the way to glory, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In more than twenty things which I set down ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "This done, I twenty more had in my crown, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And they again began to multiply, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Nay, then, thought I, if that you breed so fast, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I'll put you by yourselves, lest you at last ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Should prove ad infinitum, Without end. and eat out ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The book that I already am about. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Well, so I did; but yet I did not think ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To show to all the world my pen and ink ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In such a mode; I only thought to make ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I knew not what: nor did I undertake ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thereby to please my neighbor; no, not I; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I did it my own self to gratify. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Neither did I but vacant seasons spend ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In this my scribble; nor did I intend ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But to divert myself, in doing this, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "From worser thoughts, which make me do amiss. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thus I set pen to paper with delight, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And quickly had my thoughts in black and white; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For having now my method by the end, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Still as I pull'd, it came; and so I penned ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It down; until it came at last to be, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For length and breadth, the bigness which you see. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Well, when I had thus put mine ends together ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I show'd them others, that I might see whether ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They would condemn them, or them justify: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And some said, let them live; some, let them die:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Some said, It might do good; others said, No. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Now was I in a strait, and did not see ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Which was the best thing to be done by me: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "At last I thought, Since ye are thus divided, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I print it will; and so the case decided. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For, thought I, some I see would have it done, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Though others in that channel do not run: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To prove, then, who advised for the best, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thus I thought fit to put it to the test. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I further thought, if now I did deny ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Those that would have it, thus to gratify; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I did not know, but hinder them I might ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of that which would to them be great delight. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For those which were not for its coming forth, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I said to them, Offend you, I am loath; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yet since your brethren pleased with it be, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Forbear to judge, till you do further see. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "If that thou wilt not read, let it alone; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Some love the meat, some love to pick the bone. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yea, that I might them better palliate, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I did too with them thus expostulate: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "May I not write in such a style as this? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In such a method too, and yet not miss ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My end-thy good? Why may it not be done? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yea, dark or bright, if they their silver drops ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Cause to descend, the earth, by yielding crops, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Gives praise to both, and carpeth not at either, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But treasures up the fruit they yield together; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yea, so commixes both, that in their fruit ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "None can distinguish this from that; they suit ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Her well when hungry; but if she be full, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "She spews out both, and makes their blessing null. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "You see the ways the fisherman doth take ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To catch the fish; what engines doth he make! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Behold how he engageth all his wits;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Also his snares, lines, angles, hooks, and nets: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yet fish there be, that neither hook nor line, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Nor snare, nor net, nor engine can make thine: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They must be groped for, and be tickled too, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Or they will not be catch'd, whate'er you do. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "How does the fowler seek to catch his game ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By divers means! all which one cannot name. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "His guns, his nets, his lime-twigs, light and bell: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He creeps, he goes, he stands; yea, who can tell ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of all his postures? yet there's none of these ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Will make him master of what fowls he please. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yea, he must pipe and whistle, to catch this; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yet if he does so, that bird he will miss. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "If that a pearl may in toad's head dwell, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And may be found too in an oyster-shell; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "If things that promise nothing, do contain ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "What better is than gold; who will disdain, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That have an inkling of it, there to look, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That they may find it. Now my little book, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "(Though void of all these paintings that may make ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It with this or the other man to take,) ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Is not without those things that do excel ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "What do in brave but empty notions dwell. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Well, yet I am not fully satisfied ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That this your book will stand, when soundly tried.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Why, what's the matter? \"It is dark.\" What though?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"But it is feigned.\" What of that? I trow ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Some men by feigned words, as dark as mine, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Make truth to spangle, and its rays to shine. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"But they want solidness.\" Speak, man, thy mind. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"They drown the weak; metaphors make us blind.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Solidity, indeed, becomes the pen ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of him that writeth things divine to men: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But must I needs want solidness, because ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By metaphors I speak? Were not God's laws, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "His gospel laws, in olden time held forth ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By types, shadows, and metaphors? Yet loth ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Will any sober man be to find fault ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With them, lest he be found for to assault ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The highest wisdom! No, he rather stoops, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And seeks to find out what, by pins and loops, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By calves and sheep, by heifers, and by rams, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By birds and herbs, and by the blood of lambs, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "God speaketh to him; and happy is he ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That finds the light and grace that in them be. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But not too forward, therefore, to conclude ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That I want solidness—that I am rude; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "All things solid in show, not solid be; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "All things in parable despise not we, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Lest things most hurtful lightly we receive, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And things that good are, of our souls bereave. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My dark and cloudy words they do but hold ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The truth, as cabinets inclose the gold. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The prophets used much by metaphors ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To set forth truth: yea, who so considers ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Christ, his apostles too, shall plainly see, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That truths to this day in such mantles be. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Am I afraid to say, that holy writ, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Which for its style and phrase puts down all wit, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Is everywhere so full of all these things, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Dark figures, allegories? Yet there springs ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "From that same book, that lustre, and those rays ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of light, that turn our darkest nights to days. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Come, let my carper to his life now look, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And find there darker lines than in my book ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He findeth any; yea, and let him know, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That in his best things there are worse lines too. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "May we but stand before impartial men, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To his poor one I durst adventure ten, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That they will take my meaning in these lines ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Far better than his lies in silver shrines. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Come, truth, although in swaddling-clothes, I find ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Informs the judgment, rectifies the mind; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Pleases the understanding, makes the will ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Submit, the memory too it doth fill ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With what doth our imagination please; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Likewise it tends our troubles to appease. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Sound words, I know, Timothy is to use, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And old wives' fables he is to refuse; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But yet grave Paul him nowhere doth forbid ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The use of parables, in which lay hid ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That gold, those pearls, and precious stones that were ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Worth digging for, and that with greatest care. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Let me add one word more. O man of God, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Art thou offended? Dost thou wish I had ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Put forth my matter in another dress? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Or that I had in things been more express? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Three things let me propound; then I submit ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To those that are my betters, as is fit. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "1. I find not that I am denied the use ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of this my method, so I no abuse ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Put on the words, things, readers, or be rude", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In handling figure or similitude, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In application; but all that I may ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Seek the advance of truth this or that way. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Denied, did I say? Nay, I have leave, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "(Example too, and that from them that have ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "God better pleased, by their words or ways, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Than any man that breatheth now-a-days,) ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thus to express my mind, thus to declare ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Things unto thee that excellentest are. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "2. I find that men as high as trees will write", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Dialogue-wise; yet no man doth them slight ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For writing so. Indeed, if they abuse ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Truth, cursed be they, and the craft they use ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To that intent; but yet let truth be free ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To make her sallies upon thee and me, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Which way it pleases God: for who knows how, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Better than he that taught us first to plough, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To guide our minds and pens for his designs? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And he makes base things usher in divine. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "3. I find that holy writ, in many places, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Hath semblance with this method, where the cases ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Do call for one thing to set forth another: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Use it I may then, and yet nothing smother ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Truth's golden beams: nay, by this method may ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Make it cast forth its rays as light as day. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And now, before I do put up my pen, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I'll show the profit of my book; and then ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Commit both thee and it unto that hand ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That pulls the strong down, and makes weak ones stand.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "This book it chalketh out before thine eyes ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The man that seeks the everlasting prize: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It shows you whence he comes, whither he goes, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "What he leaves undone; also what he does: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It also shows you how he runs, and runs, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till he unto the gate of glory comes. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It shows, too, who set out for life amain, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As if the lasting crown they would obtain; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Here also you may see the reason why ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They lose their labor, and like fools do die. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "This book will make a traveler of thee, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "If by its counsel thou wilt ruled be; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It will direct thee to the Holy Land, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "If thou wilt its directions understand ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yea, it will make the slothful active be; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The blind also delightful things to see. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Art thou for something rare and profitable? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Or would'st thou see a truth within a fable? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Art thou forgetful? Wouldest thou remember ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "From New-Year's day to the last of December? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then read my fancies; they will stick like burs, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And may be, to the helpless, comforters. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "This book is writ in such a dialect ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As may the minds of listless men affect: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It seems a novelty, and yet contains ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Nothing but sound and honest gospel strains. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Would'st thou divert thyself from melancholy? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Would'st thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Would'st thou read riddles, and their explanation? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Or else be drowned in thy contemplation? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Dost thou love picking meat? Or would'st thou see ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A man i' the clouds, and hear him speak to thee? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Would'st thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Or would'st thou in a moment laugh and weep? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Would'st thou lose thyself and catch no harm, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And find thyself again without a charm? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Would'st read thyself, and read thou know'st not what, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And yet know whether thou art blest or not, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By reading the same lines? O then come hither, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And lay my book, thy head, and heart together. ", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("85", "JOHN BUNYAN.") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>