- THE MONK
OUT of our Lady's cloister torn,
I swept like a hunted flame,
Over valleys and hills forlorn
To a leafy wood where in shades are born
Mosses without a name.
And there I found — poor monk that I was —
My curse, my fate, my spell —
Lightly she leaped from the leafy grass
With a sigh like a vesper-bell.
And her eyes to me had the strange soft look
Of the "Introibo" signs
In my illumined Missal-book,
Where the "Sursum Corda" begins.
O God! I loved her from my heart;
And a little she loved me!
And day and night she led me apart
Where the flickering sunbeams gleam and dart
In the mid-wood's mystery.
Her childish movements, her broken words,
They were my only beads.
For choir we had the twittering birds,
For candles the moonlit reeds.
O God! I loved her from my heart,
And a little she loved me!
