O take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe, Not whisper, any murmur of complaint. Pain heap’d ten hundredfold to this, were still Less burthen, by ten hundredfold, to bear, Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush’d My spirit flat before thee. . . . . . 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 either they were stoned or crucified, Or burn’d in fire, or boil’d in oil, or sawn In twain beneath the ribs; but I die 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 I 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 marvel’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 this— Or else I dream—and for so long a time.