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. Power goes forth from me. They say that they are heal’d. Ah, hark! they shout “St. Simeon Stylites”. Why, if so, God reaps a harvest in me. O my 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, “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; I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes; I, whose bald brows in silent hours become Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now From my high nest of penance here proclaim That Pontius and Iscariot by my side Show’d like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay, A vessel full of sin: all hell beneath Made me boil over. Devils pluck’d my sleeve;[5] Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me. I smote them with the cross; they swarm’d again. In bed like monstrous apes they crush’d my chest: They flapp’d my light out as I read: I saw Their faces grow between me and my book: With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left, And by this way I’scaped them. Mortify Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns; Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast Whole Lents, and pray. I hardly, with slow steps, With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding pain, Have scrambled past those pits of fire, that still Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the praise: God only thro’ his bounty hath thought fit, Among the powers and princes of this world, To make me an example to mankind, Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say But that a time may come—yea, even now, Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs Of life—I say, that time is at the doors When you may worship me without reproach; For I will leave my relics in your land, And you may carve a shrine about my dust, And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones, When I am gather’d to the glorious saints. While I spake then, a sting of shrewdest pain Ran shrivelling thro’ me, and a cloudlike change, In passing, with a grosser film made thick These heavy, horny eyes. The end! 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, I know thy glittering face. I waited long; My brows are ready. What! deny it now? Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it. Christ!