]> The Three Hermits An electronic edition William Butler Yeats Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber Juliette Maffet School of History, University College, Cork First draft. 587 CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork
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The works by W. B. Yeats are in the public domain. This electronic text is available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of private or academic research and teaching.

 Bibliography A bibliography is available online at the official web site of the Nobel Prize. See: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1923/yeats-bibl.html The edition used in the digital edition William Butler Yeats The Three Hermits William Butler Yeats Responsibilities and other Poems The Macmillan Company New York 1916 45–46

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 By William Butler Yeats (1865–1939). before 1916 The poem is in English. literary poetry W. B. Yeats 19c 20c 2012-02-10 Beatrix Färber ed. File proofed (2), additions to encoding made; header completed; file parsed; SGML and HTML files created. 2012-02-01 Juliette Maffet ed. Header created. 2012-01-23 Juliette Maffet ed. First proofing. 2012-01-18 Juliette Maffet file capture Text captured by scanning. The Three Hermits Three old hermits took the air By a cold and desolate sea, First was muttering a prayer, Second rummaged for a flea; On a windy stone, the third, Giddy with his hundredth year, Sang unnoticed like a bird. 'Though the Door of Death is near And what waits behind the door, Three times in a single day I, though upright on the shore, Fall asleep when I should pray.' So the first, but now the second, 'We're but given what we have earned When all thoughts and deeds are reckoned, So it's plain to be discerned That the shades of holy men, Who have failed being weak of will, Pass the Door of Birth again, And are plagued by crowds, until They've the passion to escape.' Moaned the other, 'They are thrown Into some most fearful shape.' But the second mocked his moan: 'They are not changed to anything, Having loved God once, but maybe, To a poet or a king Or a witty lovely lady.' While he'd rummaged rags and hair, Caught and cracked his flea, the third, Giddy with his hundredth year Sang unnoticed like a bird.