Explore "Tales of a Wayside Inn" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Once on a time, some centuries ago, / In the hot sunshine two Franciscan friars / Wended their weary way with footsteps slow / Back to their convent, whose white walls and spires / Gleamed on the hillside like a patch of snow; / Covered with dust they were, and torn by briers, / And bore like sumpter-mules upon their backs / The badge of poverty, their beggar's sacks.
The first was Brother Anthony, a spare / And silent man, with pallid cheeks and thin, / Much given to vigils, penance, fasting, prayer, / Solemn and gray, and worn with discipline, / As if his body but white ashes were, / Heaped on the living coals that glowed within; / A simple monk, like many of his day, / Whose instinct was to listen and obey.