VARIOUS POEMS
A square and flattened bell-tower, that might stand
Above deep-windowed buildings long and low,
Closed all securely by a vine-clung wall,
And shadowed on one side by cypress tall.
Within the gate, a garden set with care:
Box-bordered plots, where peach and almond trees
Rained blossoms on the maidens walking there,
Or rustled softly in the summer breeze;
Here were sweet jessamine and jonquil rare,
And arbors meet for pious talk at ease;
There must have been a dove-cote too, I know,
Where white-winged birds like spirits come and go.
Outside, the thrush and lark their music made
Beyond the olive-grove at dewy morn;
By noon, cicalas, shrilling in the shade
Of oak and ilex, woke the peasant's horn;
And, at the time when into darkness fade
The vineyards, from their purple depths were borne
The nightingale's responses to the prayer
Of those sweet saints at vespers, meek and fair.
Such is the place that, with the hand and eye
Which are the joy of youth, I should have painted.
Say not, who look thereon, that 't is awry—
Like nothing real, by rhymesters' use attainted.
Ah well! then put the faulty picture by,
And help me draw an abbess long since sainted.
Think of your love, each one, and thereby guess
The fashion of this lady's beauteousness.
For in this convent Sister Beatrice,
Of all her nuns the fairest and most young,
Became, through grace and special holiness,
Their sacred head, and moved, her brood among,
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