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| AN ABBEY in a forest old, | |
| A forest old of pine, | |
| Slowly arose where hills enfold | |
| Not very far from Rhine: | |
| And lower a stream that swept the walls | 5 |
| Fell into silver waterfalls; | |
| Seven slender falls in a gorge of gray, | |
| Where the willowherb was wet with spray; | |
| The rock wore glossy grass like hair, | |
| And a birch-tree shimmered in soft air; | 10 |
| Nor yet stole sweetly over the cool | |
| Wave, as it glided into a pool, | |
| A vesper hymn | |
| From the forest dim, | |
| Nor bells from Allerheiligen! | 15 |
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| Flew twenty summers; the monks were there | |
| In a cloistral solitude: | |
| How few that heard the chanted prayer | |
| Divined the worldly feud | |
| ’Mong lives monotonous and pale, | 20 |
| Whom weariness would oft assail! | |
| Yet holy-hearted, gentle men | |
| Paced the echoing cloister then, | |
| Learnéd, and kindly to the poor; | |
| Some sorely worn who sought to lure, | 25 |
| Rest to a weary wounded heart; | |
| And where the mountain cleaves apart, | |
| Such an one, ere the day’s decline | |
| Like an illumined vellum fine, | |
| Mused oft upon the sombre green, | 30 |
| Beyond the fluttering watersheen, | |
| Of piny hills, toward the sky | |
| Receding with a softer dye, | |
| And ever with an airier bloom, | |
| Till they are fading to a fume: | 35 |
| Now at eve stole o’er the cool | |
| Wave, as it glided into a pool, | |
| A vesper hymn | |
| From the forest dim, | |
| And bells from Allerheiligen! | 40 |
| |
| Seven hundred summers; the monks are gone: | |
| Their abbey in the wood | |
| Resigns in every mouldered stone | |
| A human brotherhood! * * * * * | |
| Ivy and vine and roses vie | 45 |
| With old flamboyant tracery: | |
| Lo! the carven corbel where | |
| Hangs a tiny garden fair; | |
| Birds have sown it as they pass | |
| With fairy mosses and with grass; | 50 |
| A wild bee in a dim chapelle, | |
| Hovering near a flowerbell, | |
| With a drowsy murmur droning, | |
| Imitates a priest intoning, | |
| With his lowly eyes intent | 55 |
| Upon the Holy Sacrament! | |
| Wild geranium and fir | |
| Perfume the air, in place of myrrh, | |
| Breathing from a thurifer: | |
| Winds are jubilant, wail, complain, | 60 |
| Where many a blaze of jewel-pane | |
| Heard the tempestuous anthem heave and wane! | |
| Winds intone a wondrous hymn | |
| In yonder aisles of forest dim; | |
| But a frail harebell | 65 |
| Is the only bell, | |
| Hangs now in Allerheiligen! * * * * * | |
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