THE HERMIT

.
Slowly, slowly sinks the setting sun,
An orange disc of molten fire,
As if it were the funeral pyre
Of all his earthly hopes.

Yet in the enveloping dusk
The frail husk of his body glows,
Lit by the pale snows
Around him.

High at the summit of the world
His spirit soars above the icy peaks,
Even as his flesh decays
And intimates its final days
Are near.

Once he knew the warmth of love,
But when it failed
He sought a simple holy place,
To look for peace,
Alone.

He gazes with his aged eyes
At the jagged mountains carved below,
The silent stones,
That taught him truths he did not know
Before.

At last he rests,
And his faded eyes
Close for ever.

And then he sees
What he had not seen
With all the youthful power of his sight:
The love he sought
Was always there
Beside him.

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