When autumn nights were long and drear

When autumn nights were long and drear,

And forest walks were dark and dim,

How sweetly on the pilgrim's ear

Was wont to steal the hermit's hymn!

Devotion borrows Music's tone,

And Music took Devotion's wings;

And, like the bird that hails the sun,

They soar to heaven, and soaring sing.

The Hermit of St. Cement's Well

"Pilgrim on a Forest Road - Into the Mist of Old Japan"

photograph by T. Enami, ca. 1898, hand coloured.