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A Hermit of Carmel

And Other Poems

By

George Santayana

New York

Charles Scribner's Sons

1901




CONTENTS

    A HERMIT OF CARMEL

    THE KNIGHT'S RETURN. A Sequel to A Hermit of Carmel

    ELEGIAC AND LYRIC POEMS

    Premonition
    Solipsism
    Sybaris
    Avila
    King's College Chapel
    On an Unfinished Statue
    Midnight
    In Grantchester Meadows
    Futility
    Before a Statue of Achilles
    Odi et Amo
    Cathedrals by the Sea
    Mont Brevent
    The Rustic at the Play
    Resurrection

    TRANSLATIONS

    From Michael Angelo
    From Alfred de Musset: _Souvenir_
    From Théophile Gautier: l'_Art_

    CONVIVIAL AND OCCASIONAL VERSES

    Prosit Neujahr
    Fair Harvard
    College Drinking Song
    Six Wise Fools
    Athletic Ode
    The Bottles and the Wine
    The Poetic Medium
    Young Sammy's first Wild Oats
    Spain in America
    Youth's Immortality




A HERMIT OF CARMEL



SCENE.--_A ravine amid the <DW72>s of Mount Carmel. On one side a
hermitage, on the other a rustic cross. The sun is about to set in the
sea, which fills the background_.



  HERMIT. Thou who wast tempted in the wilderness,
  Guard me this night, for there are snares in sleep
  That baffle watching. O poisoned, bitter life
  Of doubt and longing! Were death possible,
  Who would not choose it? But that dim estate
  Might plunge my witless ghost in grosser matter
  And in still closer meshes choke my life.
  Yet thus to live is grievous agony,
  When sleep and thirst, hunger and weariness,
  And the sharp goads of thought-awakened lust
  Torture the flesh, and inward doubt of all
  Embitters with its lurking mockery
  Virtue's sad victories. This wilderness
  Whither I fly from the approach of men
  Keeps not the devil out. The treacherous glens
  Are full of imps, and ghosts in moonlit vesture
  Startle the watches of the lidless night.
  The giant forest, in my youth so fair,
  Is now a den of demons; the hoarse sea
  Is foul with monsters hungry for my soul;
  The dark and pregnant soil, once innocent
  Mother of flowers, reeks with venomous worms,
  And sore temptation is in all the world.
  But hist! A sound, as if of clanking hoofs.
  Saint Anthony protect me from the fiend,
  Whether he come in guise of horned beast
  Or of pernicious man! If I must die
  Be it upon this hallowed ground, O Lord!


        [_Hides in the hut._

        _Enter a young_ KNIGHT.


  KNIGHT [_reining in his horse_].

  Rest, Albus, rest.--Doth the sun sink in glory
    Because he sinks to rise?--
  Breathe here a space; here bends the promontory,
    There Acra's haven lies.
  Those specks are galleys waiting for the gale
    To make for Christian shores.
  To-morrow they will fly with bellying sail
    And plash of swinging oars,
  Bearing us both to where the freeman tills
    The plot where he was born,
  And belfry answers belfry from the hills
    Above the fields of corn.
  Thence one less sea to traverse ere we come
    Where all our hopes abide,
  One truant journey less to end in home,
    Thy mistress, and my bride. [_He dismounts._
  Good Albus, 't is enough for one day's riding.
    Here shall our bivouac be.
  Surely by that green sward some brook is hiding
    To welcome thee and me.
  Yes, hark! Its laugh betrays it. Graze thou there,
    Nor fear the camp's alarms.


        [_Lets the horse go and turns_, _perceiving the cross
        on the hillside._


  See where a cross, inviting me to prayer,
    Outspreads its sacred arms.
  O first of many that mine eyes shall see
    On altar, tomb, and tower,
  Art thou the last of crosses come to me
    Before my guerdon's hour?
  Or first or last, and