I sit among the hoary trees
With Aristotle on my knees
And turn with serious hand the pages,
Lost in the cobweb-hush of ages;
When suddenly with no more sound
Than any sunbeam on the ground,
The little hermit of the place
Is peering up into my face-
The slim gray hermit of the rocks,
With bright, inquisitive, quick eyes,
His life a round of harks and shocks,
A little ripple of surprise.
Now lifted up, intense and still,
Sprung from the silence of the hill
He hangs upon the ledge a-glisten.
And his whole body seems to listen!
My pages give a little start,
And he is gone! to be a part
Of the old cedar’s crumpled bark.
A mottled scar, a weather mark!
(Edwin Markham)
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Based on Topics: Place Poems, Silence Poems, Listening Poems, Weather PoemsBased on Keywords: inquisitive, aristotle, harks, a-glisten