The passionate mans Pilgrimage
Supposed to be Written by One at the Point of Death


Give me my Scallop shell of quiet,
My staffe of Faith to walke upon
My Scrip of Joy, Immortall diet,
My bottle of salvation:
My Gowne of Glory, hopes true gage,
And thus Ile take my pilgrimage.

Blood must be my bodies balmer,
No other balme will there be given
Whilst my soule like a white Palmer
Travels to the land of Heaven,
Over the silver mountaines,
Where spring the Nectar fountaines:
And there Ile kiss
The Bowle of blisse,
And drink my eternall fill
On every milken hill.
My soule will be a drie before,
But after it, will nere thirst more.

And by the happie blisfull way
More peacefull Pilgrims I shall see,
That have shooke off their gownes of clay,
And goe appareld fresh like mee.
Ile bring them first
To slake their thirst,
And then to tast those Nectar suckets
At the cleare wells
Where sweetnes dwells,
Drawne up by Saints in Christall buckets.

And when our bottles and all we,
Are fild with immortalitie:
Strewde with Rubies thicke as gravell,
Seelings of Diamonds, Saphire floores,
High walles of Corall and Pearle Bowres.

From thence to heavens Bribeles hall
Where no corrupted voyces brall,
No Conscience molten into gold,
Not forg'd accusers bought and sold,
No cause deferd, nor vaine spent Jorney,
For there Christ is the Kings Atturney:
Who pleades for all without degrees,
And he hath Angells, but no fees.

When the grand twelve million Jury,
Of our sinnes and sinfull fury,
Gainst our soules blacke verdicts give,
Christ pleades his death, and then we live,
Be thou my speaker taintles pleader,
Unblotted Lawer, tru proceeder,
Thou movest salvation even for almes:
Not with a bribed Lawyers palmes.

And this is my eternall plea,
To him that made Heaven, Earth and Sea,
Seeing my flesh must die so soone,
And want a head to dine next noone,
Just at the stroke when my vaines start and spred
Set on my soule an everlasting head.
Then am I readie like a palmer fit,
To tread those blest paths which before I writ.

Note:

According to Robert Nye (A Choice of Sir Walter Ralegh's Verse, London, Faber and Faber Limited, 1972):

"He died, as he had lived, bravely and with great style. 'He seemed as free from all manner of apprehension,' wrote an observer, Thomas Larkin, 'as if he had been come hither rather to be a spectator than a sufferer.' He forgave the executioner and would not be blindfolded. Asked if he did not wish to put his head on the block facing east, in hope of Christ's resurrection, he answered that it was no great matter which way the head lay, 'so the heart be right.'"