Волшебница Шалотт и другие стихотворения

While my stiff spine can hold my weary head,

Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone,

Have mercy, mercy: take away my sin.

О 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 did not all thy martyrs die one death?

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, О 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 spake not of it to a single soul,

Until the ulcer, eating thro’ my skin,

Betray’d my secret penance, so that all

My brethren marvell’d greatly. More than this

I bore, whereof, О 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;

Inswathed 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, О 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

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