16. Monks
for another small Album
{48}
(With lines on hinges to fit
it.)
WHY dear Cousin,
why
Ask for verses,
when a poet's
fount of song is
dry?
Or, if aught be
there,
Harsh and chill, it
ill may touch the
hand of lady
fair.
Who can perfumed waters
bring
From a convent
spring? {49}
"Monks in the olden
time,
"They were rhymesters?"—
they were rhymesters,
but in Latin
rhyme.
Monks in the days of
old
Lived in secret,
in the Church's
kindly-sheltering
fold.
No bland meditators
they
Of a courtly
lay.
"They had visions
bright?"—
they had visions,
yet not sent in
slumbers soft and
light. {50}
No! a lesson
stern
First by vigils,
fast, and penance
theirs it was to
learn.
This their soul-ennobling
gain,
Joys wrought out by
pain.
"When from home they
stirr'd,
"Sweet their voices?"—
still, a blessing
closed their merriest
word;
And their gayest
smile
Told of musings
solitary,
and the hallow'd
aisle. {51}
"Songsters?"—hark! they answer!
round
Plaintive chantings
sound!
Grey his cowl鐡
vest,
Whose strong heart has
pledged his service
to the cloister
blest.
Duly garb'd is
he,
As the frost-work
gems the branches
of yon stately
tree.
'Tis a danger-thwarting
spell,
And it fits me
well!
Oxford.
December, 1829.
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