Just think now; I had lost my best years some- where; for I was past
the prime of life, my hair and beard were scattered with white, my
body was growing weaker, my memory of all things was very faint

My raiment, purple and scarlet and blue once, was so stained that you
could scarce call it any colour, was so tattered that it scarce
covered my body, though it seemed once to have fallen in heavy folds
to my feet, and still, when I rose to walk, though the miserable
November mist lay in great drops upon my bare breast, yet was I
obliged to wind my raiment over my arm, it dragged so (wretched,
slimy, textureless thing! ) in the brown mud.

On my head was a light morion, which pressed on my brow and pained me;
so I put my hand up to take it ofi; but when I touched it I stood
still in my walk shuddering; I nearly fell to the earth with shame and
sick horror; for I laid my hand on a lump of Slimy earth with worms
coiled up in it I could scarce forbear from shrieking, but breathing
such a prayer as I could think of, I raised my hand again and seized
it firmly. Worse horror stilll The rust had eaten it into holes, and I
gripped my own hair as well as the rotting steel, the sharp edge of
which cut into my fingers; but setting my teeth, gave a great wrench,
for I knew that if I let go of it then, no power on the earth or under
it could make me touch it again. God be praised! I tore it off and
cast it far from me; I saw the earth, and the worms and green weeds
and sun- begotten slime, whirling out from it radiatingly, as it spun
round about.

I was girt with a sword too, the leathern belt of which had shrunk and
squeezed my waist: dead leaves had gathered in knots about the buckles