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;
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

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 mother, 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!
'Tis gone: 'tis here again; the crown! the crown!
So now 'tis fitted on and grows to me,

And from it melt the dews of Paradise,

Sweet! sweet! spikenard, and balm, and frankincense.
Ah! let me not be fool'd, sweet saints. I trust

That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven.
Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God,
Among you there, and let him presently
Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft,

And climbing up into mine airy home,
Deliver me the blessed sacrament;

For by the warning of the Holy Ghost,
I prophesy that I shall die to-night,
A quarter before twelve.

But thou, O Lord,

Aid all this foolish people; let them take
Example, pattern: lead them to thy light.

THE TALKING OAK.

I.

ONCE more the gate behind me falls;

Once more before my face

I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls,

That stand within the chace.

II.

Beyond the lodge the city lies,

Beneath its drift of smoke;

And ah! with what delighted eyes

I turn to yonder oak.

III.

For when my passion first began,

Ere that, which in me burn'd,

The love, that makes me thrice a man,

IV.

To yonder oak within the field

I spoke without restraint,

And with a larger faith appeal'd

Than Papist unto Saint.

V.

For oft I talk'd with him apart,
And told him of my choice,

Until he plagiarised a heart,

And answer'd with a voice.

VI.

Tho' what he whisper'd under Heaven

None else could understand;

I found him garrulously given,

A babbler in the land.

VII.

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.