"What motive drew, that impulse, I would ask…"

                What motive drew, what impulse, I would ask,
                Through a long course of later ages, drove,
                The hermit to his cell in forest wide;
                Or what detained him, till his closing eyes
                Took their last farewell of the sun and stars,
                Fast anchored in the desert? — Not alone
                Dread of the persecuting sword, remorse,
                Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged
                And unavengeable, defeated pride,
                Prosperity subverted, maddening want,
                Friendship betrayed, affection unretumed,
                Love with despair, or grief in agony; —
                Not always from intolerable pangs
                He fled; but, compassed round by pleasure, sighed
                For independent happiness; craving peace,
                The central feeling of all happiness,
                Not as a refuge from distress or pain,
                A breathing-time, vacation, or a truce,
                But for its absolute self; a life of peace,
                Stability without regret or fear;
                That hath been, is, and shall be evermore! —
                Such the reward he sought; and wore out life,
                There, where on few external things his heart
                Was set, and those his own; or, if not his,
                Subsisting under nature's stedfast law.
                What other yearning was the master tie
                Of the monastic brotherhood, upon rock
                Aerial, or in green secluded vale,
                One after one, collected from afar,
                An undissolving fellowship? — What but this,
                The universal instinct of repose,
                The longing for confirmed tranquillity,
                Inward and outward; humble, yet sublime:
                The life where hope and memory are as one;
                Where earth is quiet and her face unchanged
                Save by the simplest toil of human hands
                Or seasons' difference; the immortal Soul
                Consistent in self-rule; and heaven revealed
                To meditation in that quietness! —

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