A HERMITAGE.
A Saxon eremite of old did rear
My mossy walls beneath this pine-clad slope;
From learned Iona, armed with clerkly lere,
He went in youth, and dealt a deadly stroke
Through all the lonely Arctic Cyclades
On Pagan creeds; and o’er the misty seas
In Suevia with Odin’s might did cope,
The chief of blue Valhalla’s deities;
Nor ceased, till from his forest temple dark
Had fled each white-stoled oaken hierarch.
His mission done, beneath my lowly roof
His days he passed, from all the world aloof.