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The Three Hermits
| Three old hermits took the air | | By a cold and desolate sea, | | First was muttering a prayer, | | Second rummaged
for a flea; | | On a windy stone, the third, | | Giddy with his hundredth year, | | Sang unnoticed like a bird: | | ‘Though
the Door of Death is near | | And what waits behind the door, | | Three times in a single day | | I, though upright
on the shore, | | Fall asleep when I should pray.’ | | So the first, but now the second: | | ‘We’re but given what
we have earned | | When all thoughts and deeds are reckoned, | | So it’s plain to be discerned | | That the shades
of holy men | | Who have failed, being weak of will, | | Pass the Door of Birth again, | | And are plagued by crowds,
until | | They’ve the passion to escape.’ | | Moaned the other, ‘They are thrown | | Into some most fearful shape.’ | | But the second mocked his moan: | | ‘They are not changed to anything, | | Having loved God once, but maybe | | To a poet or a king | | Or a witty lovely lady.’ | | While he’d rummaged rags and hair, | | Caught and cracked his
flea, the third, | | Giddy with his hundredth year, | | Sang unnoticed like a bird. |
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