Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE HERMIT, by MARION GOBLE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE HERMIT, by                    
First Line: He cuts life to his pattern, and wraps it as a cloak about him
Last Line: And dreams again a denial: of love returned unto love.
Subject(s): Hermits


He cuts life to his pattern, and wraps it as a cloak about him,
Sheltering the core of himself in its rich folds
To dream through the dust of days.
But the unquenchable fire of him cannot be extinguished,
The cone never reaches his shoulders.
The dream dies, and the dust is stirred, the cloak is dropped.

Denying love he goes forth to meet it in the mornings;
Naked to the sun rays that pierce his two hands,
That burn through his eyelids,
He strides, striking with the hardened soles of his feet the harder granite,
And drinking from stone through his flesh the love of his mountains.

Forsaking the diatonic music of brass and gut and reedflutter,
Knowingly woven and scored till the mind is over-heavied,
He walks to the anvilling edge of his ocean,
Hears the surf driven by the cold, fierce wind-master,
Pounding a rhythm that beats through the ears to the blood,
And he laughs a free god's laughter,
While the wind howls its need to the sea,
And the love of them both drives through his body like wine:

Drunken with the love he has denied, he reaches out a finger
And troubles the waters for many --
For many who are afraid and tremble.

Baffled and stunned by their strange, unnameable fear of life,
He returns to the sea, to the mountain, to granite,
He follows the curve to its ultimate end:

Lonely with eagles, strong with the hill-strength, he takes up the cloak where it fell,
And dreams again a denial: of love returned unto love.





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