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| O, THERE were sisters, sisters seven, | |
| As bright as any stars in heaven; | |
| Save one, they all were snowy white, | |
| And she like Oriental night: | |
| Yet she was like unto the rest, | 5 |
| Had all their softness in her breast, | |
| Their lights and shadows in her face, | |
| And in her figure all their grace; | |
| The brightest she of all the seven, | |
| Yet all were bright, as stars in heaven. | 10 |
| |
| They had true lovers, every one, | |
| Except the fairest,—she had none; | |
| Or rather say that she returned | |
| Their love to none who for her burned; | |
| For Marie ’s timid, Marie ’s mild, | 15 |
| And on her spirit undefiled | |
| St. Brigid’s nuns their thoughts have bent; | |
| She flies her sisters’ merriment. | |
| They say they ’ll marry, every one, | |
| But Marie says she ’ll be a nun. | 20 |
| |
| “O, wait awhile,” her father said, | |
| “Sweet Marie, wait till I am dead.” | |
| The nuns, for this, more firmly sought | |
| To wean her from each earthly thought. | |
| O, you were made for God, not man,— | 25 |
| ’T was thus their pious plea began; | |
| For much these pale recluses feared, | |
| As her gay sisters’ nuptials neared. | |
| “O, wait awhile,” the Baron said, | |
| “Sweet Marie, wait till they are wed.” | 30 |
| |
| A novice now, sweet Marie dwells | |
| Within dark Odder’s sacred cells; | |
| Yet on her sisters’ wedding-day | |
| She joins the chivalrous array. | |
| The brides were sweeter than their flowers, | 35 |
| The bridegrooms came from haughty towers, | |
| For Nangle’s daughters are beneath | |
| No lordly hand in lordly Meath. | |
| The novice heart of Marie swells; | |
| “O, dark,” she sighs, “are Odder’s cells!” | 40 |
| |
| Yet vainly on that wedding-day | |
| Her sisters and their gay grooms pray,— | |
| She grieves to part with those so dear, | |
| But she is filled with pious fear; | |
| While Tuite and Tyrrell urged in vain, | 45 |
| Her tears fell down like Munster rain,— | |
| Malone and Bellew, Taaffe and Dease,— | |
| “O, cease,” she says, “in pity cease, | |
| Or I must leave your wedding gay, | |
| In Odder’s walls to fast and pray.” | 50 |
| |
| The marriage rites are bravely done; | |
| But what ails her, the novice nun? | |
| O, never had she seen an eye | |
| Look into hers so tenderly. | |
| “Methinks that deep and mellow voice | 55 |
| Would make the Abbess’ self rejoice; | |
| He ’s sure the Saint I dreamt upon,— | |
| Not Barnewell of Trimleston. | |
| In Holy Land his spurs he won,— | |
| What aileth me, a novice nun?” * * * * * | 60 |
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