So the faithful pilgrims saw him waiting there without complaint,—­
  Soon they learned to call him holy, fed him as they fed the saint.

  Day by day he watched the sunrise flood the distant plain with gold,
  While the River Nile beneath him, silvery coiling, sea-ward rolled.

  Night by night he saw the planets range their glittering court on high,
  Saw the moon, with queenly motion, mount her throne and rule the sky.

  Morn advanced and midnight fled, in visionary pomp attired;
  Never morn and never midnight brought the vision long-desired.

  Now at last the day is dawning when Serapion makes his gift;
  Felix kneels before the threshold, hardly dares his eyes to lift.

Now the cavern door uncloses, now the saint above him stands,
Blesses him without a word, and leaves a token in his hands.

’Tis the guerdon of thy waiting!  Look, thou happy pilgrim, look! 
Nothing but a tattered fragment of an old papyrus book.

Read! perchance the clue to guide thee hidden in the words may lie: 
“Raise the stone, and thou shalt find me; cleave the wood, and there
am I.”

Can it be the mighty Master spake such simple words as these? 
Can it be that men must seek Him at their toil ’mid rocks and trees?

Disappointed, heavy-hearted, from the Mountain of the Bird
Felix mournfully descended, questioning the Master’s word.

Not for him a sacred dwelling, far above the haunts of men: 
He must turn his footsteps backward to the common life again.

  From a quarry near the river, hollowed out amid the hills,
  Rose the clattering voice of labour, clanking hammers, clinking drills.

Dust, and noise, and hot confusion made a Babel of the spot: 
There, among the lowliest workers, Felix sought and found his lot.

Now he swung the ponderous mallet, smote the iron in the rock—­
Muscles quivering, tingling, throbbing—­blow on blow and shock on shock;

Now he drove the willow wedges, wet them till they swelled and split,
With their silent strength, the fragment, sent it thundering down the
pit.

Now the groaning tackle raised it; now the rollers made it slide;
Harnessed men, like beasts of burden, drew it to the river-side.

Now the palm-trees must be riven, massive timbers hewn and dressed;
Rafts to bear the stones in safety on the rushing river’s breast.

Axe and auger, saw and chisel, wrought the will of man in wood: 
’Mid the many-handed labour Felix toiled, and found it good.

  Every day the blood ran fleeter through his limbs and round his heart;
  Every night he slept the sweeter, knowing he had done his part.

  Dreams of solitary saintship faded from him; but, instead,
  Came a sense of daily comfort in the toil for daily bread.

  Far away, across the river, gleamed the white walls of the town
  Whither all the stones and timbers day by day were floated down.