Of life was wasted. From the social scenes Of human energy an alien driv’n, He almost had forgot the face of Man.— No voice had met his ear, save, when perchance The Pilgrim wand’rer, or the Goatherd Swain, Bewilder’d in the starless midnight hour Implored the HERMIT’s aid, the HERMIT’s pray’rs; And nothing loath by pity or by pray’r Was he, to save the wretched. On the top Of his low rushy Dome, a tinkling bell Oft told the weary Trav’ller to approach Fearless of danger. The small silver sound In quick vibrations echo’d down the dell To the dim valley’s quiet, while the breeze Slept on the glassy LEMAN. Thus he past His melancholy days, an alien Man From all the joys of social intercourse, Alone, unpitied, by the world forgot! His Scrip each morning bore the day’s repast Gather’d on summits, mingling with the clouds, From whose bleak altitude the Eye look’d down While fast the giddy brain was rock’d by fear. Oft would he start from visionary rest When roaming wolves their midnight chorus howl’d, Or blasts infuriate shatter’d the white cliffs, While the huge fragments, rifted by the storm, Plung’d to the dell below. Oft would he sit In silent sadness on the jutting block Of snow-encrusted ice, and, shudd’ring mark (Amid the wonders of the frozen world) Dissolving pyramids, and threatening peaks, Hang o’er his hovel, terribly Sublime. And oft, when Summer breath’d ambrosial gales, Soft sailing o’er the waste of printless dew Or twilight gossamer, his pensive gaze Trac’d the swift storm advancing, whose broad wing Blacken’d the rushy dome of his low Hut; While the pale lightning smote the pathless top Of tow’ring CENIS, scatt’ring high and wide A mist of fleecy Snow. Then would he hear, (While MEM’RY brought to view his happier days) The tumbling torrent, bursting wildly forth From its thaw’d prison, sweep the shaggy cliff Vast and Stupendous! strength’ning as it fell, And delving, ’mid the snow, a cavern rude!