"At fourteen years My father taught me carpentry, his trade, And made me work with him. I seemed to be The butt for jokes and laughter with the men-- I know not why. For now and then they'd drop A word that showed they knew my secrets, knew I had heard voices, knew I loathed the lusts Of women, drink. Oh these were sorry years, God was not with me though I sought Him ever And I was persecuted for His sake. My brain Seemed like to burst at times, saw sparkling lights, Heard music, voices, made strange shapes of leaves, Clouds, trunks of trees,--illusions of the devil. I was turned twenty years when on an evening Calm, beautiful in June, after a day Of healthful toil, while sitting on the porch, The sun just sinking, at my left I heard A voice of hollow clearness: "You are Christ." My eyes grew blind with tears for the evil Of such a thought, soul stained with such a thought, So devil stained, soul damned with blasphemy. I ran into my room and seized a pistol To end my life. God willed it otherwise. I fainted and awoke upon the floor After some hours. To heap my suffering full A few days after this while in the village I went into a store. The friendly clerk-- I knew him always--said 'What will you have? I wait first always on the little boys.' I laughed and went my way. But in an hour His saying rankled, I began to brood On ways of vengeance, till it seemed at last His life must pay. O, soul so full of sin, So devil tangled, tortured--which not prayer Nor watching could deliver. So I thought To save my soul from murder I must fly-- I felt an urging as one does in sleep Pursued by giant things to fly, to fly From terror, death, from blankness on the scene, From emptiness, from beauty gone. The world Seemed something seen in fever, where the steps Of men are muffled, and a futile scheme Impels all steps. So packing up my kit, My Bible in my pocket, secretly I disappeared. Next day took up my life In Barrington, a village thirty miles From all I knew, besides a lovely lake, Reached by a road that crossed a bridge Over a little bay, the bridge's ends Clustered with boats for fishermen. And here Night after night I fished, or stood and watched The star-light on the water.