Classic Poem

The sheltered garden sleeps among the tall
Black poplars which grow round it, next the wall.
The wall is very high, green grown on red.
All is within, white convent, chapel, all.

Slight supper past, the evening office said,
Gardening tools locked up, the poultry fed,
Little is done but lazy chaplets told,
Weeds plucked, and garden calvaries visited.

Some pace and stitch; some read in little, old,
Worn heavily bound missals, which they hold
With both red hands, where lawns are foiled with flowers,
Lily and Ladybell and Marygold.

This is the least unhushed of evening hours,
When blessed peace best wears its dearest dowers:
Quietly grouped are nuns and novices;
Two tiny ladies play with battledores.

Drunk with the blows, unsteady with the whizz
Of whirling flight, the shuttlecock seems, is

Alive and fluttering at each new shock.
Sisters are drawing close by twos and threes.

Asthmatic mother, as the shuttlecock
Flies straight at her, allows herself to knock
It onward with her leaf fan, muttering,
Half as excuse: 'Tis nearly nine o'clock.

What better warrant for a foolish thing:
With swift inventiveness the sisters bring
Whatever light thing strikes; old copybooks
Fulfil the purpose well. Such fluttering

Within the convent walls the sober rooks
Who live among the poplar branches—Sooks!—
Had seldom seen. Now all the place prevails
With cries and laughter to its furthest nooks.

The novices and nuns catch up their tails,
Better to bustle, darting till their veils
Float back and tangle in the merry fuss,
Till sombre weeds swell out like lusty sails…

Peace, croaks the mother, Peace, the angelus!