Thomas Wingfold. Volume III by George MacDonald

"It was midnight, and sultry as hell. All day not a breath had / stirred. The country through which I passed was level as the sea / that had once flowed above it. My heart had almost ceased to beat, / and I was weary as the man who is too weary to sleep outright, and / labours in his dreams. I slumbered and yet walked on. My blood / flowed scarce faster than the sluggish water in the many canals I / crossed on my weary way. And ever I thought to meet the shadow that / was and was not death. But this was no dream. Just on the stroke of / midnight, I came to the gate of a large city, and the watchers let / me pass. Through many an ancient and lofty street I wandered, like a / ghost in a dream, knowing no one, and caring not for myself, and at / length reached an open space where stood a great church, the cross / upon whose spire seemed bejewelled with the stars upon which it / dwelt. And in my soul I said, O Lord Jesus! and went up to the base / of the tower, and found the door thereof open to my hand. Then with / my staff I ascended the winding stairs, until I reached the open / sky. And the stairs went still winding, on and on, up towards the / stars. And with my staff I ascended, and arose into the sky, until I / stood at the foot of the cross of stone.

"Ay me! how the centuries without haste, without rest, had glided / along since I stood by the cross of dishonour and pain! And God had / not grown weary of his life yet, but I had grown so weary in my very / bones that weariness was my element, and I had ceased almost to note / it. And now, high-uplifted in honour and worship over every populous / city, stood the cross among the stars! I scrambled up the pinnacles, / and up on the carven stem of the cross, for my sinews were as steel, / and my muscles had dried and hardened until they were as those of / the tiger or the great serpent. So I climbed, and lifted up myself / until I reached the great arms of the cross, and over them I flung / my arms, as was my wont, and entwined the stem with my legs, and / there hung, three hundred feet above the roofs of the houses. And as / I hung the moon rose and cast the shadow of me Ahasuerus upon the / cross, up against the Pleiades. And as if dull Nature were offended / thereat, nor understood the offering of my poor sacrifice, the / clouds began to gather, like the vultures -- no one could have told / whence. From all sides around they rose, and the moon was blotted / out, and they gathered and rose until they met right over the cross. / And when they closed, then the lightning brake forth, and the / thunder with it, and it flashed and thundered above and around and / beneath me, so that I could not tell which voice belonged to which / arrow, for all were mingled in one great confusion and uproar. And / the people in the houses below heard the sound of the thunder, and / they looked from their windows, and they saw the storm raving and / flashing about the spire, which stood the heart of the agony, and / they saw something hang there, even upon its cross, in the form of a / man, and they came from their houses, and the whole space beneath / was filled with people, who stood gazing up at the marvel.