The Hidden Servants and Other Very Old Stories

Ten years; and the hermit still was there.
Grown older, thinner, with shoulders bent,
He seldom forth from his shelter went.
But those he had helped in former days
With prayers and counsel, in thousand ways,
Were mindful of him, and brought him all
He needed now, for his wants were small.
And happy they were their best to give,
If only their mountain saint would live!
For in his living their lives were blest;
And if he longed for the perfect rest,
Patient he was, and content to wait,
While God should please, at the heavenly gate.
Beautiful now his face had grown,
But the beauty was something not his own, —
A solemn light from the blessèd land
Within whose border he soon must stand.
Little he said, but his every word
Was saved and treasured by those who heard,
To be a blessing in years to come,
When he should be theirs no more; and some
Who brought their little to help his need,
Went home with their souls enriched indeed!

One autumn morning he sat alone,
Outside his cell; and the warm sun shone
With a friendly light on his silver hair,
Through the branches, smooth and almost bare,
Of the beech-tree, now, like him, grown old.
The night before had been sharp and cold;
And the frost was white on leaf and stem
Wherever the rocks still shaded them,
But where the sunbeams had found their way,
In glittering, crystal drops it lay;
And fallen leaves at his feet were strewn,
Yellow and wet, over turf and stone.

He sat and dreamed, as the agèd do,
While, drifting backward, he lived anew
The years that never again should be.
A placid dream – for his soul was free
From all the troubles of long ago,
The doubts, the conflict he used to know!
Doubts of himself, and a contest grim
With evil spirits that strove for him.
Now all was over; that troubled day
Was like a storm that had passed away.

It seemed to him that his voyage was o'er;
His ship already had touched the shore.
Yet once he sighed; for he knew that he
Was not the man he had hoped to be,
And, looking back on his journey past,
He felt – what all of us feel at last!
And his soul was moved to pray once more
The prayer he had made twelve years before,
Only to know, before he died,
If he were worthy to stand beside
One of God's children, or great or small,
Who served Him truly; and that was all!

It was not long ere the angel came,
Who, gently calling the saint by name,
Said: "Come, for thou hast not far to go.
One step, and I to thine eyes will show
The very dwelling that shelters now
Two souls as near to the Lord as thou!"

The hermit rose; and with reverent tread
He followed on as the angel led.
Where a single cleft the rocks between
Gave passage out of the valley green
They passed, and stood in the pathway steep:
The rocks about them were sunken deep
In fern, and bramble, and purple heath,
That sloped away to the woods beneath;
While far below, and on every side,
Were endless mountains, and forests wide,
And scattered villages here and there,
That all looked near in the clear, dry air.
And here a church, with its belfry tall;
And there a convent, whose massive wall
Rose grave and stately above the trees.
The hermit willingly looked at these;
For hope they gave him that now, at least,
Some praying brother or toiling priest
Might be his mate; but it was not so!
The angel showed him, away below,
A slope where a little mountain-farm
Lay, all spread out in the sunshine warm,
Along the side of a wooded hill.
It looked so peaceful and far and still!
And when his eye on the farmhouse fell,
The angel said: "It is there they dwell!
Two women in heart and soul like thee.
Go, find them, Brother, and thou shalt see
All that thou art in their lives displayed."
Before the hermit an answer made,
The angel back to the skies had flown;
He stood in the rocky path alone.