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 cowlèd + 

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! + 