Poems (Cary)/The Convent
THE CONVENT.
Come, thou of the drooping eyelid, And cheek that is meekly pale,Give over thy pensive musing And list to a lonesome tale;For hearts that are torn and bleeding, Or heavy as thine, and lone,May find in another's sorrow Forgetfulness of their own.So heap on the blazing fagots And trim the lamp anew,And I'll tell you a mournful story— I would that it were not true!
The bright red clouds of the sunset On the tops of the mountains layAnd many and goodly vessels Were anchored below in the bay;We saw the walls of the city, And could hear its vexing din,As our mules, with their nostrils smoking, Drew up at a wayside inn:The hearth was ample and blazing, For the night was something chill,But my heart, though I knew not wherefore, Sunk down with a sense of ill.
That night I stood on the terrace O'erlooking a blossomy vale,And the gray old walls of a convent That loomed in the moonlight pale—Till the lamp of the sweet Madonna Grew faint as if burning low,And the midnight bell in the turret Swung heavily to and froWhen, just as its last sweet music Came back from the echoing hill,And the hymn of the ghostly friars In the fretted aisle grew still,On a rude bench, hid among olives, I noted a maiden fair,Alone, with the night wind playing In the locks of her raven hair.Thrice came the sound of her sighing, And thrice were her red lips pressedWith wild and passionate fervor To the cross that hung on her breast;But her bearing was not the bearing That to saintly soul belongs,Albeit she chanted the fragments Of holy and beautiful songs.
'T was the half hour after the midnight, And, so like that it might be now,The full moon was meekly climbing Over the mountain's brow,When the step of the singing maiden In the corridor lightly trod,And I presently saw her kneeling In prayer to the mother of God!On the leaves of her golden missal Darkly her loose locks lay,And she cried, "Forgive me, sweet Virgin, And mother of Jesus, I pray!"
When the music was softly melting From the eloquent lips of Morn,Within the walls of the convent Those beautiful locks were shorn:And wherefore the veil was taken Was never revealed by time,But Charity sweetly hopeth For sorrow, and not for crime.