Yes, I have felt all man can feel, 260 Till he shall pay his nature's debt: Ills that no hope has strength to heal, No mind the comfort to forget: Whatever cares the heart can fret, The spirits wear, the temper gall, Wo, want, dread, anguish, all beset My sinful soul!--together all! Those fiends upon a shaking fen Fix'd me, in dark tempestuous night; There never trod the foot of men; 270 There flock'd the fowl in wint'ry flight; There danced the moor's deceitful light Above the pool where sedges grow; And, when the morning-sun shone bright, It shone upon a field of snow. They hung me on a bough so small. The rook could build her nest no higher; They fix'd me on the trembling ball That crowns the steeple's quiv'ring spire; They set me where the seas retire, 280 But drown with their returning tide; And made me flee the mountain's fire, When rolling from its burning side. I've hung upon the ridgy steep Of cliffs, and held the rambling brier; I've plunged below the billowy deep, Where air was sent me to respire; I've been where hungry wolves retire; And (to complete my woes) I've ran Where Bedlam's crazy crew conspire 290 Against the life of reasoning man. I've furl'd in storms the flapping sail, By hanging from the topmast-head; I've served the vilest slaves in jail, And pick'd the dunghill's spoil for bread; I've made the badger's hole my bed, I've wander'd with a gipsy crew; I've dreaded all the guilty dread, And done what they would fear to do. On sand, where ebbs and flows the flood, 300 Midway they placed and bade me die; Propp'd on my staff, I stoutly stood, When the swift waves came rolling by; And high they rose, and still more high, Till my lips drank the bitter brine; I sobb'd convulsed, then cast mine eye, And saw the tide's re-flowing sign. And then, my dreams were such as nought Could yield but my unhappy case; I've been of thousand devils caught, 310 And thrust into that horrid place, Where reign dismay, despair, disgrace; Furies with iron fangs were there, To torture that accursed race, Doomed to dismay, disgrace, despair. Harmless I was, yet hunted down For treasons, to my soul unfit; I've been pursued through many a town, For crimes that petty knaves commit; I've been adjudged t' have lost my wit, 320 Because I preach'd so loud and well; And thrown into the dungeon's pit, For trampling on the pit of hell.