With never a voice to comfort him.

He has risen up under the little light

Where the noon is as dark as the summer night.

Six days therein has he walked alone

Till his scrip was bare and his meat was done.

On the seventh morn in the mirk, mirk wood,

He saw sight that he deemed was good.

It was as one sees a flower a-bloom

In the dusky heat of a shuttered room.

He deemed the fair thing far aloof,