XXXV
Deem it not strange that men of deeper thought,
Retired to solitudes of woods and mountains,
Where, by a life of pray’r and contemplation,
They strove to find the soul’s complete salvation,
And drink of heaven’s unpolluted fountains,
And comprehend what God for man hath wrought.
The solitude, in which the hermit dwelt,
Was deep and undisturbed by human strife,
No sound was heard but nature’s matchless tones,
Its song, the cry, the sigh, the wandering moans,
Which lift the poet’s vision to a life,
That has no language, but alone is felt.
Such quiet is a balm for wretched minds,
A cooling water to the soul athirst;
Sordino drank it like the cup of grace,
In which you see the Saviour’s crownèd face,
God spoke to him, not as to Cain accurst,
But as a father, in the whispering winds.
XXXVI
Towards eve, that day, arrived his faithful aid,
Who after stealthy search had found a ship
For Ireland bound, to sail that very night;
And in the dark, before the moon rose bright,
They might into its hiding safely slip,—
The captain willing to be doubly paid.
So, as the dusk grew on, the kindly dusk,—
Which like a mother’s weeping love embraces
Her guilty child, to pardon, shield and hide,
Close to her breast, where nothing shall betide
Him but the shelter from the cruel faces
Of an avenging world,—he rose to busk
With his companions, yet, ere he took leave,
He prayed the hermit’s blessing on his soul,
Then put a golden pound within his palms,
The hermit thanked him for his gen’rous alms,
Then blessed him with the cross, yea, blessed them all,
And bid them fare in hope, and not to grieve.
Then they departed to a little boat,
Hid in a wooded nook upon the river,
And in the darkness for the ship set out,
And Quinn, who plied the oars, did make the route,
Without a blunder, to the “Guadalquiver,”—
As proud a galleon as was afloat.