Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SONNET: HELOISE. 2. NUN, by CONSTANCE CAROLINE WOODHILL NADEN



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SONNET: HELOISE. 2. NUN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This is the doom I must henceforth fulfill
Last Line: Joy comes with morn -- that joy whose name is death.
Subject(s): Death; Heloise (1098-1164); Nuns; Dead, The; Eloise; Eloisa


THIS is the doom I must henceforth fulfil:
To hide my heart through days, and months, and years;
To look in anxious eyes, and lull their fears;
To lose all hope, and strive with joyless will;
To sing and pray, scarce knowing good from ill;
To hear stale converse, as an idiot hears;
To tread the cloistered courts with burning tears,
Forced backward to their fount, yet rising still.

Nay, there is comfort! E'en the sick may smile,
Knowing for pain a swift and gentle cure;
I can be patient, and can wait awhile,
Nor curse the heedless heavens with moaning breath:
Though for a night my weeping may endure,
Joy comes with morn -- that joy whose name is Death.






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