Good people, you do ill to kneel to me.
What is it I can have done to merit this?

I am a sinner viler than you all.

It may be I have wrought some miracles,

And cured some halt and maim'd; but what of that?

It may be, no one, even among the saints,

May match his pains with mine; but what of that?
Yet do not rise; for you may look on me,
And in your looking you may kneel to God.
Speak! is there any of you halt or maim'd?
I think you know I have some power with Heaven
From my long penance:
Yes, I can heal him.
They say that they are heal'd.
"St. Simeon Stylites." Why, if so,
God reaps a harvest in me.
God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be,

let him speak his wish.
Power goes forth from me.

Ah, hark! they shout

O my soul,

Can I work miracles and not be saved?

This is not told of any. They were saints.

It cannot be but that I shall be saved;

Yea, crown'd a saint. They shout, “Behold a saint!”
And lower voices saint me from above.

Courage, St. Simeon! This dull chrysalis

Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death

Spreads more and more and more, that God hath now
Sponged and made blank of crimeful record all

My mortal archives.

O my sons, my sons,

I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname
Stylites, among men; I, Simeon,

The watcher on the column till the end;
I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes;
I, whose bald brows in silent hours become

Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now
From my high nest of penance here proclaim
That Pontius and Iscariot by my side

Show'd like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay,
A vessel full of sin: all hell beneath

Made me boil over. Devils pluck'd my sleeve;
Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me.

I smote them with the cross; they swarm'd again.
In bed like monstrous apes they crush'd my chest:
They flapp'd my light out as I read : I saw
Their faces grow between me and my book;
With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine
They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left,

And by this way I 'scaped them. Mortify

Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns;
Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast
Whole Lents, and pray. I hardly, with slow steps,
With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding pain,
Have scrambled past those pits of fire, that still
Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the praise
God only thro' his bounty hath thought fit,
Among the powers and princes of this world,
To make me an example to mankind,
Which few can reach to.

But that a time may come

Yet I do not say

- yea, even now,

Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs
I say, that time is at the doors

Of life

When you may worship me without reproach;
For I will leave my relics in your land,
And you may carve a shrine about my dust,
And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones,
When I am gather'd to the glorious saints.

While I spake then, a sting of shrewdest pain
Ran shrivelling thro' me, and a cloudlike change,
In passing, with a grosser film made thick
These heavy, horny eyes. The end! the end!
Surely the end! What's here? a shape, a shade,
Is that the angel there

A flash of light.

That holds a crown? Come, blessed brother, come.

I know thy glittering face. I waited long;
My brows are ready. What! deny it now?
Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it.

Christ!

'Tis gone: 't is here again; the crown! the crown! So now 't is fitted on and grows to me,

And from it melt the dews of Paradise,

Sweet! sweet! spikenard, and balm, and frankincense.
Ah! let me not be fool'd, sweet saints: I trust

That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven.
Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God,

Among you there, and let him presently
Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft,
And climbing up into my airy home,
Deliver me the blessed sacrament;
For by the warning of the Holy Ghost,
I prophesy that I shall die to-night,
A quarter before twelve.

But thou, O Lord,
Aid all this foolish people; let them take
Example, pattern: lead them to thy light.

ONCE more the gate behind me falls;
Once more before my face

I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls,
That stand within the chace.

Beyond the lodge the city lies,
Beneath its drift of smoke;
And ah! with what delighted eyes
I turn to yonder oak.

For when my passion first began,

Ere that, which in me burn'd, The love, that makes me thrice a man, Could hope itself return'd;

To yonder oak within the field

I spoke without restraint,
And with a larger faith appeal'd
Than Papist unto Saint.

For oft I talk'd with him apart,
And told him of my choice,
Until he plagiarized a heart,
And answer'd with a voice.

Made ripe in Sumner-chace :

"Old Summers, when the monk was fat,
And, issuing shorn and sleek,
Would twist his girdle tight, and pat
The girls upon the cheek,

"Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence, And number'd bead, and shrift, Bluff Harry broke into the spence,

And turn'd the cowls adrift:

"And I have seen some score of those Fresh faces, that would thrive

When his man-minded offset rose

"And all that from the town would stroll,

Till that wild wind made work

In which the gloomy brewer's soul
Went by me, like a stork:

For when my passion first began,

Ere that, which in me burn'd, The love, that makes me thrice a man, Could hope itself return'd;

To yonder oak within the field

I spoke without restraint,
And with a larger faith appeal'd
Than Papist unto Saint.

For oft I talk'd with him apart,
And told him of my choice,
Until he plagiarized a heart,
And answer'd with a voice.