Part 2 — A HERMITAGE.
Reading edition
A Saxon eremite of old did rear My mossy walls beneath this pine-clad slope; From learned Iona, armed with clerkly lere, He went in youth, and dealt a deadly stroke Through all the lonely Arctic Cyclades On Pagan creeds; and o’er the misty seas In Suevia with Odin’s might did cope, The chief of blue Valhalla’s deities; Nor ceased, till from his forest temple dark Had fled each white-stoled oaken hierarch. His mission done, beneath my lowly roof His days he passed, from all the world aloof.