My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim
round me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow.
Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me
down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened
in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no
will, to flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead.
One idea only still throbbed life-like within me--a remembrance of
God: it begot an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up
and down in my rayless mind, as something that should be whispered,
but no energy was found to express them "Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help."
It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it-
-as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my
lips--it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The
whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched,
my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen
mass. That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, "the waters
came into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came
into deep waters; the floods overflowed me."