I sit among the hoary trees <br />With Aristotle on my knees <br />And turn with serious hand the pages, <br />Lost in the cobweb-hush of ages; <br />When suddenly with no more sound <br />Than any sunbeam on the ground, <br />The little hermit of the place <br />Is peering up into my face— <br />The slim gray hermit of the rocks, <br />With bright, inquisitive, quick eyes, <br />His life a round of harks and shocks, <br />A little ripple of surprise. <br /> <br />Now lifted up, intense and still, <br />Sprung from the silence of the hill <br />He hangs upon the ledge a-glisten. <br />And his whole body seems to listen! <br />My pages give a little start, <br />And he is gone! to be a part <br />Of the old cedar's crumpled bark. <br />A mottled scar, a weather mark!<br /><br />Edwin Markham<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-lizard-3/
