For it came suddenly and shattered him,
And left no moment's agonizing thought

On those he loved so well.

He ocean deep

Now lies at rest. Be Thou her comforter

Who art the widow's friend Man does not know What a cold sickness made her blood run back

When first she heard the tidings of the fight; Man does not know with what a dreadful hope She listened to the names of those who died, Man does not know, or knowing will not heed, With what an agony of tenderness

She gazed upon her children, and beheld

His image who was gone. Oh God! be thou
Her comforter who art the widow's friend!

HENRY THE HERMIT.

It was a little island where he dwelt,

Or rather a lone rock, barren and bleak,
Short scanty herbage spotting with dark spots
Its gray stone surface. Never mariner
Approach'd that rude and uninviting coast,
Nor ever fisherman his lonely bark
Anchored beside its shore. It was a place
Befitting well a rigid anchoret,

Dead to the hopes, and vanities, and joys
And purposes of life; and he had dwelt
Many long years upon that lonely isle,

For in ripe manhood he abandoned arms,

Honours and friends and country and the world,

And had grown old in solitude. That isle

M

Some solitary man in other times

Had made his dwelling-place; and Henry found
The little chapel that his toil had built

Now by the storms unroofed, his bed of leaves
Wind-scattered, and his grave o'ergrown with grass,
And thistles, whose white seeds winged in vain
Withered on rocks, or in the waves were lost.
So he repaired the chapel's ruined roof,
Clear'd the grey lichens from the altar-stone,
And underneath a rock that shelter'd him
From the sea blasts, he built his hermitage.

The peasants from the shore would bring him food And beg his prayers; but human converse else

He knew not in that utter solitude,

Nor ever visited the haunts of men

Save when some sinful wretch on a sick bed
Implored his blessing and his aid in death.
That summons he delayed not to obey,
Tho' the night tempest or autumnal wind

Maddened the waves, and tho' the mariner,
Albeit relying on his saintly load,

Grew pale to see the peril. So he lived
A most austere and self-denying man,
Till abstinence, and age, and watchfulness
Exhausted him, and it was pain at last
To rise at midnight from his bed of leaves.

And bend his knees in prayer. Yet not the less
Tho' with reluctance of infirmity,

He rose at midnight from his bed of leaves

And bent his knees in prayer; but with more zeal
More self-condemning fervour rais'd his voice
For pardon for that sin, 'till that the sin
Repented was a joy like a good deed.

One night upon the shore his chapel bell

Was heard; the air was calm, and its far sounds

Over the water came distinct and loud.

Alarmed at that unusual hour to hear

Its toll irregular, a monk arose.

The boatmen bore him willingly across

For well the hermit Henry was beloved.
He hastened to the chapel, on a stone
Henry was sitting there, cold, stiff and dead,

The bell-rope in his hand, and at his feet

*

The lamp that stream'd a long unsteady light.

*This story is related in the English Martyrology, 1603.