May match his pains with mine; but what of that? I think you know I have some power with Heaven 66 heal'd. Ah, hark! they shout Why, if so, If this be, 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; From my high nest of penance here proclaim Show'd like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay, Made me boil over. Devils pluck'd my sleeve; I smote them with the cross; they swarm'd again. Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns; Among the powers and princes of this world, Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say While I spake then, a sting of shrewdest pain the end! Surely the end! What's here? a shape, a shade, A flash of light. Is that the angel there That holds a crown? Come, blessed brother, come. My brows are ready. What! deny it now? Christ! 'Tis gone: 'tis here again; the crown! the crown! So now 'tis 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 But thou, O Lord, Aid all this foolish people; let them take LXXI THE TALKING OAK ONCE more the gate behind me falls; I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls, Beyond the lodge the city lies, For when my passion first began, To yonder oak within the field For oft I talk'd with him apart, And answer'd with a voice. Tho' what he whisper'd, under Heaven I found him garrulously given, But since I heard him make reply Hail, hidden to the knees in fern, Say thou, whereon I carved her name, If ever maid or spouse, As fair as my Olivia, came To rest beneath thy boughs. "O Walter, I have shelter'd here Whatever maiden grace The good old Summers, year by year, 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 I have seen some score of those "And all that from the town would stroll, "The slight she-slips of loyal blood, "And I have shadow'd many a group In teacup-times of hood and hoop, $6 And, leg and arm with love-knots gay, The modish Cupid of the day, And shrill'd his tinsel shaft. "I swear (and else may insects prick This girl, for whom your heart is sick, "For those and theirs, by Nature's law, Have faded long ago; But in these latter springs I saw Your own Olivia blow, "From when she gamboll'd on the greens, A baby-germ, to when The maiden blossoms of her teens Could number five from ten. "I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain, (And hear me with thine ears,) That, tho' I circle in the grain Five hundred rings of years 66 Yet, since I first could cast a shade, Did never creature pass So slightly, musically made, So light upon the grass: "For as to fairies, that will flit Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern, And from thy topmost branch discern But thou, whereon I carved her name, "O yesterday, you know, the fair "And with him Albert came on his. As cowslip unto oxlip is, So seems she to the boy. "An hour had past-and, sitting straight Within the low-wheel'd chaise, Her mother trundled to the gate "But, as for her, she stay'd at home, And down the way you use to come, "She left the novel half-uncut "Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, And livelier than a lark She sent her voice thro' all the holt |