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- THE THREE HERMITS
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- THREE old hermits took the air
- By a cold and desolate sea,
- First was muttering a prayer,
- Second rummaged for a flea;
- On a windy stone, the third,
- Giddy with his hundredth year,
- Sang unnoticed like a bird:
- "Though the Door of Death is near
- And what waits behind the door,
- Three times in a single day
- I, though upright on the shore,
- Fall asleep when I should pray.'
- So the first, but now the second:
- "We're but given what we have eamed
- When all thoughts and deeds are reckoned,
- So it's plain to be discerned
- That the shades of holy men
- Who have failed, being weak of will,
- Pass the Door of Birth again,
- And are plagued by crowds, until
- They've the passion to escape."
- Moaned the other, "They are thrown
- Into some most fearful shape.'
- But the second mocked his moan:
- "They are not changed to anything,
- Having loved God once, but maybe
- To a poet or a king
- Or a witty lovely lady."
- While he'd rummaged rags and hair,
- Caught and cracked his flea, the third,
- Giddy with his hundredth year,
- Sang unnoticed like a bird.
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