But put your best foot forward, or I fear

That we shall miss the mail: and here it comes

With five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand

As

you shall see- -three pyebalds and a roan.

ST. SIMEON STYLITES.

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,

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 through 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;
Inswath'd 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 thisOr 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, 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.
But yet

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 :

mercy, mercy! wash away my sin.

O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am ;

A sinful man, conceived and born in sin: