Upon us and departed: Leave," she cried, "O leave me!" "Never, dearest, never here

I brave the worst:

and while we

stood like fools Embracing, all at once a score of pugs And poodles yell'd within, and out they came

Trustees and Aunts and Uncles. "What, with him!

Go" (shrill'd the cotton - spinning chorus him!"

I choked. Again they shriek'd the burden- Him!"

Again with hands of wild rejection "Go!

Girl, get you in!" She went-and in one month

They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds,

To lands in Kent and messuages in York,

And slight Sir Robert with his watery Smile

And educated whisker. But for me, They set an ancient creditor to work: It seems I broke a close with force and arms:

There came a mystic token from the king

To greet the sheriff, needless courtesy! I read, and fled by night, and flying

turn'd:

pangs,

In hangers and in thirsts, fevers and cold,

In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throws and cramps.

A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud.

Patient on this tall pillar I have borne Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow;

And I had hoped that ere this period closed

Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy rest,

Denying not these weather-beaten limbs

The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm.

O 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 burden, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear,

Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush'd

My spirit flat before thee.

O 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 tagged 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 recognize the fields I know;

And both my thighs are rotted with the dew;

Yet cease I not to clamor 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.

O 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 barn'd in fire, or boil'd in oil, or

sawn

In twain beneath the ribs; but I dio 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, 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 thro' my skin, Betray'd my secret penance, so that all

My brethren marvell'd greatly. More

than this

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. Thon, O God,

Knowest alone whether this was or

no.

Have merey, 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 years to thi. 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 you slow

light,

And this high dial, which my sorrow

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: let him speak his wish.

Yes, I can heal him, Power goes forth from me.

They say that they are heal'd. Ah, hark! they short

"St. Simeon Stylites." Why, if so, God reaps a harvest in me. Omy soul, God reaps a harvest in thee. 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

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.

Tho' what he whisper'd, under Heaven
None else could understand;
I found him garrulously given,
A babbler in the land.

But since I heard him make reply
Is many a weary hour;

"Twere well to question him, and try
If yet he keeps the power.
Hail, hidden to the knees in fern,
Broad Oak of Summer-chace,
Whose topmost branches can discern
The roofs of Summer-place!

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 Summer-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
To chase the deer at five;

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: "The slight she-slips of loyal blood, And others, passing praise, Strait-laced, but all-too-full in bud For puritanic stays:

"And I have shadow'd many a group Of beauties, that were born In teacup-times of hood and hoop, Or while the patch was worn; "And, leg and arm with love-knots

"From when she gamboll'd on the greens,

A baby-germ, to when

The maiden blossoms of her teens

Could nuriber tive 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.

"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
To make the greensward fresh,
I hold them exquisitely knit,
But far too spare of flesh.'

O, hide thy knotted knees in fern,
And overlook the chace;

And from thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Summer-place.

But thou, whereon I carved her name,
That oft hast heard my vows,
Declare when last Olivia came
To sport beneath thy boughs.
"O yesterday, you know, the fair
Was holden at the town;
His father left his good arin-chair,
And rode his hunter down.
"And with him Albert came on his,
I look'd at him with joy:
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 Behind the dappled grays.

"But, as for her, she stay'd at home,

And on the roof she went,

And down the way you used to come, She look'd with discontent.

"She left the novel half-uncut

Upon the rosewood shelf; She left the new piano shut: She could not please herself.

"Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, And livelier than a lark

She sent her voice thro' all the holt
Before her, and the park.

"A light wind chased her on the wing, And in the chase grew wild,

As close as might be would he cling
About the darling child :

"But light as any wind that blows
So fleetly did she stir.

The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and