Twelve months they sojourn’d in their solitude, And then beneath the burthen of old age Romano sunk. No brethren were there here To spread the sackcloth, and with ashes strew That penitential bed, and gather round To sing his requiem, and with prayer and psalm Assist him in his hour of agony. He lay on the bare earth, which long had been His only couch; beside him Roderick knelt, Moisten’d from time to time his blacken’d lips, Received a blessing with his latest breath, Then closed his eyes, and by the nameless grave Of the fore-tenant of that holy place Consign’d him earth to earth. Two graves are here, And Roderick transverse at their feet began To break the third. In all his intervals Of prayer, save only when he search’d the woods And fill’d the water-cruise, he labour’d there; And when the work was done, and he had laid Himself at length within its narrow sides And measured it, he shook his head to think There was no other business now for him. Poor wretch, thy bed is ready, he exclaim’d, And would that night were come!... It was a task, All gloomy as it was, which had beguiled The sense of solitude; but now he felt The burthen of the solitary hours: The silence of that lonely hermitage Lay on him like a spell; and at the voice Of his own prayers, he started half aghast. Then too as on Romano’s grave he sate And pored upon his own, a natural thought Arose within him, ... well might he have spared That useless toil; the sepulchre would be No hiding place for him; no Christian hands Were here who should compose his decent corpse And cover it with earth. There he might drag His wretched body at its passing hour, But there the Sea-Birds of her heritage Would rob the worm, or peradventure seize, Ere death had done its work, their helpless prey. Even now they did not fear him: when he walk’d Beside them on the beach, regardlessly They saw his coming; and their whirring wings Upon the height had sometimes fann’d his cheek, As if, being thus alone, humanity Had lost its rank, and the prerogative Of man were done away. For his lost crown And sceptre never had he felt a thought Of pain; repentance had no pangs to spare For trifles such as these, ... the loss of these Was a cheap penalty; ... that he had fallen Down to the lowest depth of wretchedness, His hope and consolation. But to lose His human station in the scale of things, ... To see brute nature scorn him, and renounce Its homage to the human form divine; ... Had then Almighty vengeance thus reveal’d His punishment, and was he fallen indeed Below fallen man, below redemption’s reach, ... Made lower than the beasts, and like the beasts To perish!... Such temptations troubled him By day, and in the visions of the night; And even in sleep he struggled with the thought. And waking with the effort of his prayers