16. Monks

(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?

"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 cowlèd 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.