Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald Edited by William Aldis Wright: In seven volumes |
 | I. |
[A Saint there was who threescore Years and ten] |
 | VI. |
| VII. |
 | Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald |  |
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[A Saint there was who threescore Years and ten]
A Saint there was who threescore Years and tenIn holy Meditation among Men
Had spent, but, wishing, ere he came to close
With God, to meet him in complete Repose,
Withdrew into the Wilderness, where he
Set up his Dwelling in an agèd Tree
Whose hollow Trunk his Winter Shelter made,
And whose green branching Arms his Summer Shade.
And like himself a Nightingale one Spring
Making her Nest above his Head would sing
So sweetly that her pleasant Music stole
Between the Saint and his severer Soul,
And made him sometimes [heedless of his] Vows
Listening his little Neighbour in the Boughs.
Until one Day a sterner Music woke
The sleeping Leaves, and through the Branches spoke—
“What! is the Love between us two begun
And waxing till we Two were nearly One,
For three score Years of Intercourse unstirr'd
Of Men, now shaken by a little Bird;
And such a precious Bargain, and so long
A making, [put in peril] for a Song?”
| Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald | |