So he believed that he should purify
His body, till the sin of it should die,
And the unfailing spirit and great word
Of One—who is too bright to be beheld,
And in his speech too fearful to be heard
By mortal man—should come down and be held
In him as in those holy ones of eld.
And to believe in this was rapture more
Than any that the thought of living bore
To tempt him: so the pleasant days of youth
Were but the days of striving and of prayer;
And all the beauty of those days, forsooth,
He counted as an evil or a snare,
And would have left it in the desert there.
Ah, spite of all the scourges that had bit
So fiercely his fair body, branding it
With many a painful over-written vow
Of perfect sanctity—what man shall say
How often, weak with groanings, he would bow
Before the angels of the place, and pray
That all his body might consume away?
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