22 
 
 
 
 
 
THE HERMIT 
 
AN ATTACK ON BARBERCRAFT 
 
AT LAST an end of all I hoped and feared !   
Muttered the hermit through his elfin beard. 
 
Then what art thou ?  the evil whisper whirred. 
I doubt me sorely if the hermit heard. 
 
To all God’s questions never a word he said, 
But simply shook his venerable head. 
 
God sent all plagues ;  he laughed and heeded not, 
Till people took him for an idiot. 
 
God sent all joys ;  he only laughed amain, 
Till people certified him as insane. 
 
But somehow all his fellow-lunatics 
Began to imitate his silly tricks. 
 
And stranger still, their prospects so enlarged 
That one by one the patients were discharged. 
 
God asked him by what right he interfered ;   
He only laughed into his elfin beard.