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THE MONK
67
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!