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 soerly 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 certified him insane.But somehow all his fellow-luntaics
Began to imitate his silly ticks.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 and into his elfin beard.When God revealed Himself to mortal prayer
He gave a fatal opening to Voltaire.Our Hermi had dispensed with Sinai's thunder,
But on the other hand he made no blunder;He knew ( no doubt) that any axiom
Would furnish bricks to build some Donkeydom.But!-all who urged that hermit to confess
Caught the infection of his happiness.I would it were my fate to dree his weird;
I think that I will grow an elfin beard.
