Classic Poem

FOR ANOTHER SMALL ALBUM

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?
" 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.
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.
" Songsters? " — hark! they answer!
round
Plaintive chantings
sound!
Grey his cowled
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!