Some dark nights I think about Hell and of death,

Of torture and devils and cold demon-breath.

    A monk, a professor, a seer, a writer,

    In my half-asleep mind debate on hellfire.

 

The monk thinks of Heaven and Hell the same place,

Where sinner and saint alike shall go to face,

The burning and brightness and strength of God’s light

Which drives bent men mad and the wicked to fright.

 

Professor sees Hell as an Enemy camp,

A cold and a dark and an empty expanse,

Where victims go wand’ring around Satan’s throne,

By others surrounded, forever alone.

 

The seer says Hell has not torture nor demons,

Nor spirals of circles of stone and of screaming.

Hell is where souls of the wicked are burned—

Till nothing remains, and to ashes they’re turned.

 

The writer, the last one, takes this view of Hell:

The sinner goes there, and is treated well,

But the presence of God from that prison is lacking;

Eternally, souls find their sanity cracking.

 

Some dark nights I think about Hell and of death,

Of torture and devils and cold demon-breath.

    Of Hell’s existence I have little doubt,

    Though which view is right I hope not to find out.