Soeur Monique

A RONDEAU BY COUPERIN     Quiet form of silent nun,     What has given you to my inward eyes?     What has marked you, unknown one,     In the throngs of centuries     That mine ears do listen through?     This old master's melody     That expresses you,     This admired simplicity,     Tender, with a serious wit,     And two words, the name of it,     'Soeur Monique.'     And if sad the music is,     It is sad with mysteries     Of a small immortal thing     That the passing ages sing,--     Simple music making mirth     Of the dying and the birth     Of the people of the earth.     No, not sad; we are beguiled,     Sad with living as we are;     Ours the sorrow, outpouring     Sad self on a selfless thing,     As our eyes and hearts are mild     With our sympathy for Spring,     With a pity sweet and wild     For the innocent and far,     With our sadness in a star,     Or our sadness in a child.     But two words, and this sweet air.                 Soeur Monique,     Had he more, who set you there?     Was his music-dream of you     Of some perfect nun he knew,     Or of some ideal, as true?     And I see you where you stand     With your life held in your hand     As a rosary of days.     And your thoughts in calm arrays,     And your innocent prayers are told     On your rosary of days.     And the young days and the old     With their quiet prayers did meet     When the chaplet was complete.     Did it vex you, the surmise     Of this wind of words, this storm of cries,          Though you kept the silence so          In the storms of long ago,          And you keep it, like a star?          --Of the evils triumphing,     Strong, for all your perfect conquering,          Silenced conqueror that you are?     And I wonder at your peace, I wonder.     Would it trouble you to know,     Tender soul, the world and sin     By your calm feet trodden under                 Long ago,     Living now, mighty to win?     And your feet are vanished like the snow.     Vanished; but the poet, he     In whose dream your face appears,     He who ranges unknown years     With your music in his heart,     Speaks to you familiarly     Where you keep apart,     And invents you as you were.     And your picture, O my nun!     Is a strangely easy one,     For the holy weed you wear,     For your hidden eyes and hidden hair,     And in picturing you I may     Scarcely go astray.     O the vague reality!     The mysterious certainty!     O strange truth of these my guesses     In the wide thought-wildernesses!     --Truth of one divined of many flowers;     Of one raindrop in the showers     Of the long-ago swift rain;     Of one tear of many tears     In some world-renowned pain;     Of one daisy 'mid the centuries of sun;     Of a little living nun     In the garden of the years.     Yes, I am not far astray;     But I guess you as might one     Pausing when young March is grey,     In a violet-peopled day;     All his thoughts go out to places that he knew,     To his child-home in the sun,     To the fields of his regret,     To one place i' the innocent March air,     By one olive, and invent     The familiar form and scent     Safely; a white violet     Certainly is there.     Soeur Monique, remember me.     'Tis not in the past alone     I am picturing you to be;     But my little friend, my own,     In my moment, pray for me.     For another dream is mine,     And another dream is true,                 Sweeter even,     Of the little ones that shine     Lost within the light divine,--     Of some meekest flower, or you,                 In the fields of Heaven.