Unto her God, this was to my reproach,
  And scoffs and gibes beset me on all sides. 
  In mine own cell I mortified my flesh,
  I held aloof from all my brethren’s feasts
  To wrestle with my viewless enemies,
  Till they should leave their blessing on my head;
  For nightly was I haunted by that face,
  White, bloodless, as I saw it ’midst the ferns,
  Now staring out of darkness, and it held
  Mine eyes from slumber and my brain from rest
  And drove me from my straw to weep and pray. 
  Rebellious thoughts such subtle torture wrought
  Upon my spirit that I lay day-long
  In dumb despair, until the blessed hope
  Of mercy dawned again upon my soul,
  As gradual as the slow gold moon that mounts
  The airy steps of heaven.  My faith arose
  With sure perception that disaster, wrong,
  And every shadow of man’s destiny
  Are merely circumstance, and cannot touch
  The soul’s fine essence:  they exist or die
  Only as she affirms them or denies.

    This faith sustains me even to the end: 
  It floods my heart with peace as surely now
  As on that day the friars drove me forth,
  Urging that my asceticism, too harsh,
  Endured through pride, would bring into reproach
  Their customs and their order.  Then began
  My exile in the mountains, where I bode
  A hunted man.  The elements conspired
  Against me, and I was the seasons’ sport,
  Drenched, parched, and scorched and frozen alternately,
  Burned with shrewd frosts, prostrated by fierce heats,
  Shivering ’neath chilling dews and gusty rains,
  And buffeted by all the winds of heaven. 
  Yet was this period my time of joy: 
  My daily thoughts perpetual converse held
  With angels ministrant; mine ears were charmed
  With sweet accordance of celestial sounds,
  Song, harp and choir, clear ringing through the air. 
  And visions were revealed unto mine eyes
  By night and day of Heaven’s very courts,
  In shadowless, undimmed magnificence. 
  I gave God thanks, not that He sheltered me,
  And fed me as He feeds the fowls of air—­
  For had I perished, this too had been well—­
  But for the revelation of His truth,
  The glory, the beatitude vouchsafed
  To exalt, to heal, to quicken, to inspire;
  So that the pinched, lean excommunicate
  Was crowned with joy more solid, more secure,
  Than all the comfort of the vales could bring. 
  Then the good Lord touched certain fervid hearts,
  Aspiring toward His love, to come to me,
  Timid and few at first; but as they heard
  From mine own lips the precious oracles,
  That soothed the trouble of their souls, appeased
  Their spiritual hunger, and disclosed
  All of the God within them to themselves,
  They flocked about me, and they hailed me saint,
  And sware to follow and to serve the good
  Which my word published and my life declared.