Three old hermits took the air
By a cold and desolate sea,
First was muttering a prayer,
Second rummaged for a flea;
On a windy stone, the third,
Giddy with his hundredth year,
Sang unnoticed like a bird:
‘Though the Door of Death is near
And what waits behind the door,
Three times in a single day
I, though upright on the shore,
Fall asleep when I should pray.’
So the first, but now the second:
‘We’re but given what we have earned
When all thoughts and deeds are reckoned,
So it’s plain to be discerned
That the shades of holy men
Who have failed, being weak of will,
Pass the Door of Birth again,
And are plagued by crowds, until
They’ve the passion to escape.’
Moaned the other, ‘They are thrown
Into some most fearful shape.’
But the second mocked his moan:
‘They are not changed to anything,
Having loved God once, but maybe
To a poet or a king
Or a witty lovely lady.’
While he’d rummaged rags and hair,
Caught and cracked his flea, the third,
Giddy with his hundredth year,
Sang unnoticed like a bird.

Beggar to Beggar Cried

‘Time to put off the world and go somewhere
And find my health again in the sea air,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
‘And make my soul before my pate is bare.’

‘And get a comfortable wife and house
To rid me of the devil in my shoes,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
And the worse devil that is between my thighs.’

And though I’d marry with a comely lass,
She need not be too comely—let it pass,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
‘But there’s a devil in a looking-glass.’

‘Nor should she be too rich, because the rich
Are driven by wealth as beggars by the itch,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
And cannot have a humorous happy speech.’

‘And there I’ll grow respected at my ease,
And hear amid the garden’s nightly peace,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
‘The wind-blown clamour of the barnacle-geese.’

Running to Paradise

As I came over Windy Gap
They threw a halfpenny into my cap,
For I am running to Paradise.
And all that I need do is to wish
And somebody puts his hand in the dish
To throw me a bit of salted fish:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

My brother Mourteen is worn out
With skelping55 his big brawling lout,
And I am running to Paradise.
A poor life, do what he can,
And though he keep a dog and a gun,
A serving maid and a serving man:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

Poor men have grown to be rich men,
And rich men grown to be poor again,
While I am running to Paradise.
And many a darling wits grown dull
That tossed a bare heel when at school,
Now it has filled an old sock full:
And there the king is but as the beggar.