In lonesome cave
Of noise and interruption void,
His thoughtful solitude
A hermit thus enjoy’d:
His choicest book
The remnant of a human head
The volume was, whence he
This solemn lecture read:--
“Whoe’er thou wert,
Partner of my retirement now,
My nearest intimate,
My best companion thou!
On thee to muse
The busy living world I left;
Of converse all but thine,
And silent that, bereft.
Wert thou the rich,
The idol of a gazing crowd?
Wert thou the great,
To whom obsequious thousands bow’d?
Was learning’s store
E’er treasur’d up within this shell?
Did wisdom e’er within
This empty hollow dwell?
Did youthful charms
E’er redden on this ghastful face?
Did beauty’s bloom these cheeks,
This forehead ever grace?
If on this brow
E’er sat the scornful, haughty frown,
Deceitful pride! where now
Is that disdain?----’tis gone.
If cheerful mirth
A gayness o’er this baldness cast,
Delusive, fleeting joy!
Where is it now?----’tis past.
To deck this scalp
If tedious long-liv’d hours it cost.
Vain, fruitless toil! where’s now
That labour seen?----’tis lost.
But painful sweat,
The dear-earn’d price of daily bread,
Was all, perhaps, that thee
With hungry sorrows fed.
Perhaps but tears,
Surest relief of heart-sick woe,
Thine only drink, from down
These sockets us’d to flow.
Oppress’d perhaps
With aches and with aged cares,
Down to the grave thou brought’st
A few, and hoary, hairs:
’Tis all perhaps!
No marks, no token can I trace
What, on this stage of life
Thy rank or station was.
Nameless, unknown!
Of all distinction stript and bare,
In nakedness conceal’d,
Oh! who shall thee declare?
Nameless, unknown!
Yet fit companion thou for me,
Who hear no human voice
No human visage see.
From me, from thee,
The glories of the world are gone;
Nor yet have either lost
What we could call our own.
What _we_ are now,
The great, the wise, the fair, the brave,
Shall all hereafter be,
All Hermits--in the grave.”
* * * * *