The Funeral, XVI

Surprise upon each brow had striven, As dread conjecture ran, When they beheld, as dropt from heav’n, That lone Aemonian, The hermit of Inch-Colme’s isle, Whose face ne’er lighten’d with a smile; Yet was his temper framed so mild, In innocence he walk’d a child; The untamed tenants of the moor Roam’d in his daily haunts secure; For brute and man alike were shewn That mercy claim’d this priest her own; But him they question’d not, So scriptural his answers were, Long prefaced by a tedious prayer, The subject he forgot;— Ere the proeme had been begun, Another day had seen the sun!