THE NUN'S GARDEN

They have made me a lovely garden

With walls that are rugged and gray;

They have filled it with pinks and roses

And lilies that bloom but a day;

But the walls are so high and frowning,

And the paths are so smooth and straight,

And even their smallest winding

Leads straight to the chapel gate.

I have planted a bed of pansies

Along by the chapel wall,

But though I have watered and weeded

They never have blossomed at all.

The sunshine of God cannot fall there,

For the chapel tower is too high;

So under its cold, gray shadow

My poor little blossoms die.

The Mother of God — in marble —

Gleams white where the willows toss,

And at the far end of the pathway

The dear Christ hangs on the cross;

And when the vespers are over,

If I have not sinned all day,

I may walk to the end of the garden

And kneel by the cross and pray.

But oh, for the wild, wild garden

That I knew in the days gone by,

Where the birches and elms and maples

Stretched up to the wind-swept sky;

Where, murmuring silver music,

The brook through the ferny dell

Ran down to the fields of clover,—

But hush, there's the vesper bell!