The Arbiter, the Almoner, and the Hermit

Three saints, for their salvation jealous, / Pursued, with hearts alike most zealous, / By routes diverse, their common aim. / All highways lead to Rome: the same / Of heaven our rivals deeming true, / Each chose alone his pathway to pursue. / Moved by the cares, delays, and crosses / Attach'd to suits by legal process, / One gave himself as judge, without reward, / For earthly fortune having small regard. / Since there are laws, to legal strife / Man damns himself for half his life. / For half? -- Three-fourths! -- perhaps the whole! / The hope possess'd our umpire's soul, / That on his plan he should be able / To cure this vice detestable. -- / The second chose the hospitals. / I give him praise: to solace pain / Is charity not spent in vain, / While men in part are animals. / The sick -- for things went then as now they go -- / Gave trouble to the almoner, I trow. / Impatient, sour, complaining ever, / As rack'd by rheum, or parch'd with fever, -- / 'His favourites are such and such; / With them he watches over-much, / And lets us die,' they say, -- / Such sore complaints from day to day / Were nought to those that did await / The reconciler of debate. / His judgments suited neither side; / Forsooth, in either party's view, / He never held the balance true, / But swerved in every cause he tried.

Discouraged by such speech, the arbiter / Betook himself to see the almoner. / As both received but murmurs for their fees, / They both retired, in not the best of moods, / To break their troubles to the silent woods, / And hold communion with the ancient trees. / There, underneath a rugged mountain, / Beside a clear and silent fountain, / A place revered by winds, to sun unknown, / They found the other saint, who lived alone. / Forthwith they ask'd his sage advice. / 'Your own,' he answer'd, 'must suffice; / Who but yourselves your wants should know? / To know one's self, is, here below, / The first command of the Supreme. / Have you obey'd among the bustling throngs? / Such knowledge to tranquillity belongs; / Elsewhere to seek were fallacy extreme. / Disturb the water -- do you see your face? / See we ourselves within a troubled breast? / A murky cloud in such a case, / Though once it were a crystal vase! / But, brothers, let it simply rest, / And each shall see his features there impress'd. / For inward thought a desert home is best.'