Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MONKS FOR ANOTHER SMALL VOLUME, by JOHN HENRY NEWMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MONKS FOR ANOTHER SMALL VOLUME, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Why, dear cousin, why
Last Line: Well!
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets


WHY, dear Cousin,
why
Ask for verses,
when a poet's
fount of song is
dry?
Or, if aught be
there,
Harsh and chill, it
ill may touch the
hand of lady
fair.
Who can perfumed waters
bring
From a convent
spring
"Monks in the olden
time,
"They were rhymesters?" --
they were rhymesters,
but in Latin
rhyme
Monks in the days of
old
Lived in secret,
in the Church's
kindly-sheltering
fold
No bland meditators
they
Of a courtly
lay.

"They had visions
bright?" --
they had visions,
yet not sent in
slumbers soft and
light.
No! a lesson
stern
First by vigils,
fast, and penance
theirs it was to
learn.
This their soul-ennobling
gain,
Joys wrought out by
pain.

"When from home they
stirr'd,
"Sweet their voices?" --
still, a blessing
closed their merriest
word;
And their gayest
smile
Told of musings
solitary,
and the hallow'd
aisle.
"Songsters?" -- hark! they answer!
round
Plaintive chantings
sound!

Grey his cowled
vest,
Whose strong heart has
pledged his service
to the cloister
blest.
Duly garb'd is
he,
As the frost-work
gems the branches
of yon stately
tree.
'Tis a danger-thwarting
spell,
And it fits me
well!





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