Professor George Santayana

A Hermit of Carmel and Other Poems Professor George Santayana

A HERMIT OF CARMEL SCENE.-A ravine amid the slopes of Mount Carmel. On one side a hermitage, on the other a rustic cross. The sun is about to set in the sea, which fills the background. HERMIT. Thou who wast tempted in the wilderness, Guard me this night, for there are snares in sleep That baffle watching. O poisoned, bitter life Of doubt and longing! Were death possible, Who would not choose it? But that dim estate Might plunge my witless ghost in grosser matter And in still closer meshes choke my life. Yet thus to live is grievous agony, When sleep and thirst, hunger and weariness, And the sharp goads of thought-awakened lust Torture the flesh, and inward doubt of all Embitters with its lurking mockery Virtue's sad victories. This wilderness Whither I fly from the approach of men Keeps not the devil out. The treacherous glens Are full of imps, and ghosts in moonlit vesture Startle the watches of the lidless night. The giant forest, in my youth so fair, Is now a den of demons; the hoarse sea Is foul with monsters hungry for my soul; The dark and pregnant soil, once innocent Mother of flowers, reeks with venomous worms, And sore temptation is in all the world. But hist! A sound, as if of clanking hoofs. Saint Anthony protect me from the fiend, Whether he come in guise of horned beast Or of pernicious man! If I must die Be it upon this hallowed ground, O Lord!