О 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. О 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. О 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, О 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, О 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, О 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 — even so. And yet I know not well, For that the evil ones come here, and say, ‘Fall down, О 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
