Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AT THE CONVENT NEAR SAINT GALL, by JAMES COCHRANE



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AT THE CONVENT NEAR SAINT GALL, by                    
First Line: How sweet that valley, clothed in freshest green
Last Line: Lamenting over creatures so forlorn.
Variant Title(s): Written At The Convent Near Saint Gall
Subject(s): Alps; Mountains; Saint Gall, Switzerland; Hills; Downs (great Britain)


I.

HOW sweet that valley, clothed in freshest green,
With its neat city! whose white shining walls
And village-like circumference scarce recalls
The form of any city we have seen,
But looks like some small picture, so serene
And still it lies! But hark! the convent-bell!
What strange emotions in the bosom swell!
And fair before, now doubly fair the scene.
Such magic's in a sound. The mind is stored
With images, requiring but a stroke,
Or gentlest touch, to vibrate at each chord,
And pleasurable feelings to evoke:
It is a prism, whose hues are undisclosed
Till acted on, and to its sun exposed.

II.

OUR sweetest musings are delusions oft,
As baseless as night dreams, or as the bow,
Spanning the heavens, which from afar a glow
Of beauty seems, radiant, at once, and soft,
Meet path for spirits when they pass aloft,
But aerial and unreal. To my young mind,
A convent brought up images refined
And beautiful, till, standing 'neath their loft,
I heard the sisters, gazing on the wall,
Repeat and re-repeat their weary drawl,
Which the damp vaults cast back as if in scorn;
And learned that prayers ceased not, nor night nor day,
Nor had for ages; when I turned away,
Lamenting over creatures so forlorn.





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