| 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, | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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 earned | |
| When all thoughts and deeds are reckoned | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| Giddy with his hundredth year, | |
| Sang unnoticed like a bird. | |
