The Thorn in the Flesh
Within my heart a worm had long been hid.
I knew it not when I went down and chid
Because some servants of my inner house
Had not, I found, of late been doing well,
But then I spied the horror hideous
Dwelling defiant in the inmost cell–
No, not the inmost, for there God did dwell!
But the small monster, softly burrowing,
Near by God’s chamber had made itself a den,
And lay in it and grew, the noisome thing!
Aghast I prayed-'twas time I did pray then!
But as I prayed it seemed the loathsome shape
Grew livelier, and did so gnaw and scrape
That I grew faint. Whereon to me he said–
Some one, that is, who held my swimming head,
‘Lo, I am with thee: let him do his worst;
The creature is, but not his work, accurst;
Thou hating him, he is as a thing dead.’
Then I lay still, nor thought, only endured.
At last I said, 'Lo, now I am inured
A burgess of Pain’s town!' The pain grew worse.
Then I cried out as if my heart would break.
But he, whom, in the fretting, sickening ache,
I had forgotten, spoke: ‘The law of the universe
Is this,’ he said: ‘Weakness shall be the nurse
Of strength. The help I had will serve thee too.’
So I took courage and did bear anew.
At last, through bones and flesh and shrinking skin,
Lo, the thing ate his way, and light came in,
And the thing died. I knew then what it meant,
And, turning, saw the Lord on whom I leant.
