Hermit
Have patience, till from yonder arched grotto
I bring my bowls of milk, and seasoned roots,
And fruits I plucked before the day was high:
Now, friends, enjoy my hospitality:
All's at your service, wretched shipwrecked men;
And when you've satisfied the rage of hunger
Repose on these soft skins; your sea-beat limbs
Demand the aid of kind refreshing sleep:
I'll to my evening prayers, as I am wont,
And early dreams;—for travelling o'er the hills,
And pelted by the storm the whole day past,
My knees grow feeble, and I wish for rest. (Exit)
Second Mariner
Yes, yes—first pray, and then repose in peace,
Hermit of Saba, ne'er to wake again!
Or should you wake, it must be in convulsions,
Tossed from the peak of yonder precipice,
Transfixt on pointed rocks, most bloodily.
Third Mariner
Now, now's the time: he sleeps: I hear him snore—
This hidden gold has so possessed my brain,
That I, at all events, must handle it:
Yet should the hermit 'wake while thus engaged,
Sad mischief might ensue: his nervous arm
(More than a match for our exhausted vigour)
Might exercise most horrible revenge!
Long practising among these rugged mountains,
Pursuing goats, bounding from rock to rock,
And cleaving trees to feed his evening fire,
His nerves and blood are all activity:
And then he is of so robust a fabrick
That we should be mere children in his hands,
Whirling us from the precipice at pleasure,
(Thus turning on ourselves our own designs)
Or catching up some fragment of a rock
Grind into atoms our pale, quivering limbs;
Taking full vengeance on ingratitude.
First Mariner
Fast bound in chains of sleep, I first assail him;
This knotty club shall give the unerring blow;
You follow on, and boldly second me!
Thus—comrades—thus!—that stroke has crushed his brain!
He groans! he dies?—now bear him to the summit
Of yon' tall cliff, and having thence dislodged him,
Uninterrupted we shall dig his riches,
Heirs to the wealth and plenty of his cave.
Second Mariner (conscience struck)
'Tis done, 'tis done—the hermit is no more:—
Say nothing of this deed, ye hills, ye trees,
But let eternal silence brood upon it.
O, base, base, base!!—why was I made a man,
And not some prowling monster of the forest,
The worst vile work of Nature's journeymen!
Ye lunar shadows! no resemblance yield
From craggy pointed rock, or leafy bush,
That may remind me of this murdered hermit.