Page:Poems - Tennyson (1843) - Volume 2 of 2.djvu/73

 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,