The Pilgrim

By John Bunyan 1628–1688 John Bunyan

Who would true Valour see

Let him come hither;

One here will Constant be,

Come Wind, come Weather.

There's no Discouragement,

Shall make him once Relent,

His first avow'd Intent,

To be a Pilgrim.

Who so beset him round,

With dismal Storys,

Do but themselves Confound;

His Strength the more is.

No Lyon can him fright,

He'l with a Gyant Fight,

But he will have a right,

To be a Pilgrim.

Hobgoblin, nor foul Fiend,

Can daunt his Spirit:

He knows, he at the end,

Shall Life Inherit.

Then Fancies fly away,

He'l fear not what men say,

He'l labour Night and Day,

To be a Pilgrim.

Biography

John Bunyan, author of the immortal allegory The Pilgrim's Progress (1678, 1684), was born in 1628 in Elstow, near Bedford, to Thomas Bunyan and his second wife, Margaret Bentley Bunyan. Not much is known about the details of Bunyan's life; his autobiographical memoir, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), is concerned with external events only as they impinge upon spiritual experience. His family was humble though . . .

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