I learn not yet. Perhaps I need not know;

For what concerns my knowledge God reveals.”

So spake our Morning Star, then in his rise,

And, looking round, on every side beheld

A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades.

The way he came, not having marked return,

Was difficult, by human steps untrod;

And he still on was led, but with such thoughts

Accompanied of things past and to come

Lodged in his breast as well might recommend

Such solitude before choicest society.

Full forty days he passed—whether on hill

Sometimes, anon in shady vale, each night

Under the covert of some ancient oak

Or cedar to defend him from the dew,

Or harboured in one cave, is not revealed;

Nor tasted human food, nor hunger felt,

Till those days ended; hungered then at last

Among wild beasts. They at his sight grew mild,

Nor sleeping him nor waking harmed; his walk

The fiery serpent fled and noxious worm;

The lion and fierce tiger glared aloof.

But now an aged man in rural weeds,

Following, as seemed, the quest of some stray eye,

Or withered sticks to gather, which might serve

Against a winter’s day, when winds blow keen,

To warm him wet returned from field at eve,

He saw approach; who first with curious eye

Perused him, then with words thus uttered spake:—

“Sir, what ill chance hath brought thee to this place,

So far from path or road of men, who pass

In troop or caravan? for single none

Durst ever, who returned, and dropt not here

His carcass, pined with hunger and with droughth.

I ask the rather, and the more admire,

For that to me thou seem’st the man whom late

Our new baptizing Prophet at the ford

Of Jordan honoured so, and called thee Son

Of God. I saw and heard, for we sometimes

Who dwell this wild, constrained by want, come forth

To town or village nigh (nighest is far),

Where aught we hear, and curious are to hear,

What happens new; fame also finds us out.”

To whom the Son of God: “Who brought me hither

Will bring me hence; no other guide I seek.”

“By miracle he may,” replied the swain;

“What other way I see not; for we here

Live on tough roots and stubs, to thirst inured

More than the camel, and to drink go far—

Men to much misery and hardship born.

But, if thou be the Son of God, command

That out of these hard stones be made thee bread;

So shalt thou save thyself, and us relieve

With food, whereof we wretched seldom taste.”

He ended, and the Son of God replied:—

“Think’st thou such force in bread? Is it not written

(For I discern thee other than thou seem’st),

Man lives not by bread only, but each word

Proceeding from the mouth of God, who fed

Our fathers here with manna? In the Mount