| |
| MONKS and holy clerks profest | |
| Lead the sweetest and the best, | |
| The securest life of all. | |
| Look within the convent wall, | |
| See the countenances there | 5 |
| Unannoyed by worldly care, | |
| Unaffected happy faces, | |
| With the features and the traces | |
| Of habitual tranquillity; | |
| With the joyous affability | 10 |
| That bespeaks a heart and head, | |
| Undisturbed at board and bed, | |
| Studious hours and holy rites, | |
| Occupy their days and nights; | |
| Study, learning, and devotion, | 15 |
| Leading onward to promotion; | |
| Here discreet and trusty Friars | |
| Rule the Brotherhood as Priors; | |
| Some are known as casuists, | |
| Theologians, canonists; | 20 |
| One among them, here and there, | |
| Rises to the Prelate’s chair. | |
| Thence again his parts and knowledge, | |
| Fix him in the sacred college, | |
| With the robe of Cardinal; | 25 |
| Last,—the topmost point of all,— | |
| The majestic throne of Pope | |
| Stands within the verge of hope; | |
| That supreme and awful state | |
| Which the noble and the great | 30 |
| With devout obeisance greet, | |
| Humbly falling at his feet. | |
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