here. No thought of guilt my bosom sours: Free-willed I fled from courtly bowers; For well I saw in Halls and Towers That Lust and Pride, The Arch-Fiend’s dearest darkest Powers, In state preside. I saw Mankind with vice incrusted; I saw that Honour’s sword was rusted; That few for aught but folly lusted; That He was still deceived, who trusted In Love or Friend; And hither came with Men disgusted My life to end. In this lone Cave, in garments lowly, Alike a Foe to noisy folly, And brow-bent gloomy melancholy I wear away My life, and in my office holy Consume the day. Content and comfort bless me more in This Grot, than e’er I felt before in A Palace, and with thoughts still soaring To God on high, Each night and morn with voice imploring This wish I sigh.“Let me, Oh! Lord! from life retire,
Unknown each guilty worldly fire,
Remorseful throb, or loose desire;
And when I die,
Let me in this belief expire,
‘To God I fly’!”

Stranger, if full of youth and riot
As yet no grief has marred thy quiet,
Thou haply throw’st a scornful eye at
The Hermit’s prayer:
But if Thou hast a cause to sigh at
Thy fault, or care;
If Thou hast known false Love’s vexation,
Or hast been exil’d from thy Nation,
Or guilt affrights thy contemplation,
And makes thee pine,
Oh! how must Thou lament thy station,
And envy mine!

“Were it possible” said the Friar, “for Man to be so totally wrapped up
in himself as to live in absolute seclusion from human nature, and
could yet feel the contented tranquillity which these lines express, I
allow that the situation would be more desirable, than to live in a
world so pregnant with every vice and every folly. But this never can
be the case. This inscription was merely placed here for the ornament
of the Grotto, and the sentiments and the Hermit are equally imaginary.
Man was born for society. However little He may be attached to the
World, He never can wholly forget it, or bear to be wholly forgotten by
it. Disgusted at the guilt or absurdity of Mankind, the Misanthrope

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