Classic Poem

O blessed to have left the world and fled
To craggy fastness in the wilderness;
Blessed art thou whom sovereign graces bless
With love of solitude and tears to shed;

Blessed to make the naked rock thy bed;
Blessed whom penitence did richly dress;
Blessed art thou to whom the world-sick press,
To learn to pray and heavenward be sped.

Praying apart from men like Him who prayed
And mourned and suffered and was derelict,
With grace fulfilled, with heavenly nurture stayed,
Of all thy sowing see the seemly math:
The black-robed armies line thy glorious path
To God the only good, Saint Benedict