Henry The Hermit.

It was a little island where he dwelt,
    Or rather a lone rock, barren and bleak,
    Short scanty herbage spotting with dark spots
    Its gray stone surface. Never mariner
    Approach'd that rude and uninviting coast,
    Nor ever fisherman his lonely bark
    Anchored beside its shore. It was a place
    Befitting well a rigid anchoret,
    Dead to the hopes, and vanities, and joys
    And purposes of life; and he had dwelt
    Many long years upon that lonely isle,
    For in ripe manhood he abandoned arms,
    Honours and friends and country and the world,
    And had grown old in solitude. That isle
    Some solitary man in other times
    Had made his dwelling-place; and Henry found
    The little chapel that his toil had built
    Now by the storms unroofed, his bed of leaves
    Wind-scattered, and his grave o'ergrown with grass,
    And thistles, whose white seeds winged in vain
    Withered on rocks, or in the waves were lost.
    So he repaired the chapel's ruined roof,
    Clear'd the grey lichens from the altar-stone,
    And underneath a rock that shelter'd him
    From the sea blasts, he built his hermitage.

    The peasants from the shore would bring him food
    And beg his prayers; but human converse else
    He knew not in that utter solitude,
    Nor ever visited the haunts of men
    Save when some sinful wretch on a sick bed
    Implored his blessing and his aid in death.
    That summons he delayed not to obey,
    Tho' the night tempest or autumnal wind.
    Maddened the waves, and tho' the mariner,
    Albeit relying on his saintly load,
    Grew pale to see the peril. So he lived
    A most austere and self-denying man,
    Till abstinence, and age, and watchfulness
    Exhausted him, and it was pain at last
    To rise at midnight from his bed of leaves
    And bend his knees in prayer. Yet not the less
    Tho' with reluctance of infirmity,
    He rose at midnight from his bed of leaves
    And bent his knees in prayer; but with more zeal
    More self-condemning fervour rais'd his voice
    For pardon for that sin, 'till that the sin
    Repented was a joy like a good deed.

    One night upon the shore his chapel bell
    Was heard; the air was calm, and its far sounds
    Over the water came distinct and loud.
    Alarmed at that unusual hour to hear
    Its toll irregular, a monk arose.
    The boatmen bore him willingly across
    For well the hermit Henry was beloved.
    He hastened to the chapel, on a stone
    Henry was sitting there, cold, stiff and dead,
    The bell-rope in his band, and at his feet
    The lamp that stream'd a long unsteady light