“Oh well,” says he, "you flitting with us tooJack, turn the horses' heads and home again.” John. He left his wife behind; for so I heard. John. Oh yet but I remember, ten years back- As clean and white as privet when it flowers. James. Ay, ay, the blossom fades, and they that loved At first like dove and dove were cat and dog. She was the daughter of a cottager, Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride, New things and old, himself and her, she sour'd To what she is: a nature never kind! Like men, like manners: like breeds like, they say. Kind nature is the best: those manners next That fit us like a nature second-hand; Which are indeed the manners of the great. John. But I had heard it was this bill that past, And fear of change at home, that drove him hence. James. That was the last drop in the cup of gall. I once was near him, when his bailiff brought A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince Of those that want, and those that have: and still By night we dragg'd her to the college tower From her warm bed, and up the corkscrew stair Might have been happy but what lot is : We took them all, till she was left alone And so return'd unfarrow'd to her sty. John. They found you out? James. Not they. pure ? John. Well-after all What know we of the secret of a man? His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are sound, That we should mimic this raw fool the world, Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites, As ruthless as a baby with a worm, As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows To Pity-more from ignorance than will. Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate, I had not stinted practice, 0 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, The rope that haled the buckets from the well, Until the ulcer, eating through my skin, My brethren marvell'd greatly. More than this To touch my body and be heal'd, and live: And they say then that I work'd miracles, 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; That numbers forty cubits from the soil. I think that I have borne as much as this- 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, O Simeon: thou hast suffer'd long For ages and for ages !" then they prate Of penances I cannot have gone thro', |