  SYLVESTER by an open tomb Beheld Time’s vanity and doom— A lovely body, as a flower, Left by a ploughman’s foot, wet in a shower. Sylvester meditated, thought His days to solitude were brought. Sight of a corpse within its grave!... To be an eremite alone were brave. Sylvester is a monk: and men Grow frequent round his holy den: Thence to a mount he leads them out, Called Fannus ... through the wood they hear a shout. Sylvester builds his cloister.—Hush! Across the doorstep comes a rush, And all the monks faint with a lure That those in burgeoning woods lost deep endure. Sylvester calls into the dark— There is a breath of those that hark— “Peace, peace! I am Sylvester! Peace!” Trespass and echoes and sweet motions cease. Sylvester in the woods, as still Even as the grave that bowed his will, When he became at first a monk, Rules every power in oak and olive-trunk. Sylvester conquers by his name: King Fannus and all Fauns lie tame Beneath it, and the wild-wood Cross, That he hath planted deep into the moss. Sylvester and his monks are clear From any advent warm and drear Through any door: but sometimes he Looks with slant eyes through piles of leafery. |
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