Give all thou art " he answer'd, and a light Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek; "I would have hid her needle in my heart, To save her little finger from a scratch No deeper than the skin: my ears could hear Her lightest breaths: her least remark was worth The experience of the wise. I went and came; Her voice fled always thro' the summer land; I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days! The flower of each, those moments when we met, The crown of all, we met to part no more."
Were not his words delicious, I a beast To take them as I did? but something jarr'd; Whether he spoke too largely; that there seem'd A touch of something false, some self-conceit, Or over-smoothness: howsoe'er it was, He scarcely hit my humour, and I said:
"Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me, As in the Latin song I learnt at school, Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left? But you can talk: yours is a kindly vein :
I have, I think,-Heaven knows-as much within ; Have, or should have, but for a thought or two, That like a purple beech among the greens Looks out of place: 'tis from no want in her: It is my shyness, or my self-distrust, Or something of a wayward modern mind Dissecting passion. Time will set me right."
So spoke I knowing not the things that were. Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull: "God made the woman for the use of man, And for the good and increase of the world." And I and Edwin laugh'd; and now we paused About the windings of the marge to hear The soft wind blowing over meadowy holms And alders, garden-isles; and now we left The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran By ripply shallows of the lisping lake,
elighted with the freshness and the sound.
But, when the bracken rusted on their crags, My suit had wither'd, nipt to death by him That was a God, and is a lawyer's clerk, The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles. 'Tis true, we met; one hour I had, no more: She sent a note, the seal an Elle vous suit, The close "Your Letty, only yours;" and this Thrice underscored. The friendly mist of morn Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran
My craft aground, and heard with beating heart The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel; And out I stept, and up I crept: she moved, Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering flowers: Then low and sweet I whistled thrice; and she, She turn'd, we closed, we kiss'd, swore faith, I breathed In some new planet: a silent cousin stole Upon us and departed: "Leave " she cried "O leave me !" "Never, dearest, never: here
I brave the worst:" and while we stood like fools Embracing, all at once a score of pugs
And poodles yell'd within, and out they came
Trustees and Aunts and Uncles. "What, with him!" "Go" (shrill'd the cottonspinning chorus) "him!" I choked. Again they shriek'd the burthen "Him!" Again with hands of wild rejection "Go !— Girl, get you in!" She went-and in one month They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds, To lands in Kent and messuages in York, And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile And educated whisker. But for me, They set an ancient creditor to work:
It seems I broke a close with force and arms: There came a mystic token from the king To greet the sheriff, needless courtesy ! I read, and fled by night, and flying turn'd: Her taper glimmer'd in the lake below:
I turn'd once more, close-button'd to the storm; So left the place, left Edwin, nor have seen Him since, nor heard of her, nor cared to hear.
Nor cared to hear? perhaps : yet long ago I have pardon'd little Letty; not indeed, It may be, for her own dear sake but this, She seems a part of those fresh days to me; For in the dust and drouth of London life
She moves among my visions of the lake, While the prime swallow dips his wing, or then While the gold-lily blows, and overhead The light cloud smoulders on the summer crag.
ALTHO' I be the basest of mankind,
From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin, Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy, I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold Of saintdom, and to clamour, mourn and sob, Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer, Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin.
Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God, This not be all in vain, that thrice ten years, Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs, In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and cold,
In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes and cramps, A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud,
Patient on this tall pillar I have borne
Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow; And I had hoped that ere this period closed Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy rest, Denying not these weather-beaten limbs
The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm. O take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe, Not whisper, any murmur of complaint.
Pain heap'd ten-hundred-fold to this, were still Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear,
Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush'd My spirit flat before thee.
O Lord, Lord, Thou knowest I bore this better at the first, For I was strong and hale of body then ; And tho' my teeth, which now are dropt away, Would chatter with the cold, and all my beard Was tagg'd with icy fringes in the moon,
I drown'd the whoopings of the owl with sound Of pious hymns and psalms, and sometimes saw An angel stand and watch me, as I sang.
Now am I feeble grown; my end draws nigh; I hope my end draws nigh: half deaf I am, So that I scarce can hear the people hum About the column's base, and almost blind, And scarce can recognise the fields I know; And both my thighs are rotted with the dew; Yet cease I not to clamour and to cry, While my stiff spine can hold my weary head, Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone, Have mercy, mercy: take away my sin.
O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul, Who may be saved? who is it may be saved? Who may be made a saint, if I fail here? Show me the man hath suffer'd more than I. For did not all thy martyrs die one death? For either they were stoned, or crucified, Or burn'd in fire, or boil'd in oil, or sawn In twain beneath the ribs; but I die here To-day, and whole years long, a life of death. Bear witness, if I could have found a way (And heedfully I sifted all my thought) More slowly-painful to subdue this home Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate, I had not stinted practice, O my God.
For not alone this pillar-punishment, Not this alone I bore: but while I lived In the white convent down the valley there, For many weeks about my loins I wore The rope that haled the buckets from the well, Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose; And spake not of it to a single soul, Until the ulcer, eating thro' my skin, Betray'd my secret penance, so that all My brethren marvell'd greatly. More than this I bore, whereof, O God, thou knowest all.
Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee, I lived up there on yonder mountain side. My right leg chain'd into the crag, I lay Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones; Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist, and twice Black'd with thy branding thunder, and sometimes Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not, Except the spare chance-gift of those that came To touch my body and be heal'd, and live: And they say then that I work'd miracles,
Whereof my fame is loud amongst mankind, Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, O God,
Knowest alone whether this was or no.
Have mercy, mercy; cover all my sin.
Then, that I might be more alone with thee, Three years I lived upon a pillar, high Six cubits, and three years on one of twelve; And twice three years I crouch'd on one that rose Twenty by measure; last of all, I grew Twice ten long weary weary years to this, That numbers forty cubits from the soil.
I think that I have borne as much as this- Or else I dream—and for so long a time, If I may measure time by yon slow light, And this high dial, which my sorrow crowns- So much
And yet I know not well, For that the evil ones come here, and say, "Fall down, O Simeon: thou hast suffer'd long For ages and for ages !" then they prate Of penances I cannot have gone thro', Perplexing me with lies; and oft I fall, Maybe for months, in such blind lethargies, That Heaven, and Earth, and Time are choked.
Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all the saints Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on earth House in the shade of comfortable roofs,
Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food, And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls, I, 'tween the spring and downfall of the light, Bow down one thousand and two hundred times, To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the Saints; Or in the night, after a little sleep,
I wake the chill stars sparkle; I am wet With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost. I wear an undress'd goatskin on my back; A grazing iron collar grinds my neck; And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross, And strive and wrestle with thee till I die : O mercy, mercy! wash away my sin.
O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am; A sinful man, conceived and born in sin : 'Tis their own doing; this is none of mine; Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this,
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