These heed not time; their nights and days they make Into a long, returning rosary, Whereon their lives are threaded for Christ's sake; Meekness and vigilance and chastity. A vowed patrol, in silent companies, Life-long they keep before the living Christ. In the dim church, their prayers and penances Are fragrant incense to the Sacrificed. Outside, the world is wild and passionate; Man's weary laughter and his sick despair Entreat at their impenetrable gate: They heed no voices in their dream of prayer. They saw the glory of the world displayed; They saw the bitter of it, and the sweet; They knew the roses of the world should fade, And be trod under by the hurrying feet. Therefore they rather put away desire, And crossed their hands and came to sanctuary And veiled their heads and put on coarse attire: Because their comeliness was vanity. And there they rest; they have serene insight Of the illuminating dawn to be: Mary's sweet Star dispels for them the night, The proper darkness of humanity. Calm, sad, secure; with faces worn and mild: Surely their choice of vigil is the best? Yea! for our roses fade, the world is wild; But there, beside the altar, there, is rest. VILLANELLE OF SUNSET Come hither, Child! and rest: This is the end of day, Behold the weary West! Sleep rounds with equal zest Man's toil and children's play: Come hither, Child! and rest. My white bird, seek thy nest, Thy drooping head down lay: Behold the weary West! Now are the flowers confest Of slumber: sleep, as they! Come hither, Child! and rest. Now eve is manifest, And homeward lies our way: Behold the weary West! Tired flower! upon my breast, I would wear thee alway: Come hither, Child! and rest; Behold, the weary West! MY LADY APRIL Dew on her robe and on her tangled hair; Twin dewdrops for her eyes; behold her pass, With dainty step brushing the young, green grass, The while she trills some high, fantastic air, Full of all feathered sweetness: she is fair, And all her flower-like beauty, as a glass, Mirrors out hope and love: and still, alas! Traces of tears her languid lashes wear. Say, doth she weep for very wantonness? Or is it that she dimly doth foresee Across her youth the joys grow less and less The burden of the days that are to be: Autumn and withered leaves and vanity, And winter bringing end in barrenness. TO ONE IN BEDLAM With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars, Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine; Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares, Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchaunted wine, And make his melancholy germane to the stars'?