THE NUN

A lone palm leans in the moonlight

Over a convent wall.

The sea below is waking and breaking

With quiet heave and fall.

A young nun sits at the window;

For Heaven she is too fair;

Yet even the Dove of God might nest

In her bosom beating there.

A lone ship sails from the harbour:

Whom does it bear away?

Her lover who sin-hearted has parted

And left her but to pray?

She has no lover, nor ever

Has heard afar love's sigh.

Only the convent's vesper vow

Has ever dimmed her eye.

For naught knows she of her beauty,

More than the palm of its peace;

And who beyond Christ's portal to mortal

Desires would bend her knees?

The ways of the World have flowers,

And any who will pluck those;

But let there ever be a place

Where none may pluck God's rose.