The Priest and The Maiden

by Marion Hooker Roe

BENEDICTE ! child of sin,
I have come thy heart to win
From the gay and careless world,
That thy thoughts may all be furled
'Round the banner-staff of Heaven,
And thy soul to God be given.
Yonder, 'neath our convent's dome,
Waits for thee a peaceful home ;
There are relics, saints and shrines,
Sacred lore and mystic lines;
There the holy sister-band
Wait to take thee by the hand.
Leave thy childish, aimless life,
Nerve thee for the spirit's strife;
Leave thy vain and thoughtless friends,
Seek the path that heavenward tends.

O, no ! holy father, I still must be,
As I ever have been, unchecked and free;
For I love, with a love that never will fade,
All the wonderful things that God has made:
The broad old fields where the wild flowers
The deep ravines where the young brooks flow;
The stern old rocks and the solemn trees,
And the playful, wandering and whispering breeze:
And the birds and the stars, and the tempests wild:
I love them all, for I'm Nature's child;
And the friends that I love are ever true,
And I cannot leave them to go with you,
In the joyousness of my budding bloom,
To immure myself in a living tomb.
There is one, with a dark and thoughtful eye,
Who is to all others a mystery;
But his soul is to me an open book,
And I read his mood in his slightest look;
And shutting me up in your convent gray
Would be taking the light of his life away,
And I never should kneel in my cloister dim,
But my thoughts would be far away with him ;
Nor the vesper-bell ever strike my ear,
But his low, deep voice I should list to hear,
Saying, 'Lora, come now to our altar-tree,—
Lora, dear Lora, come worship with me.'
I know I'm a wicked and wayward child,
But there are a thousand voices mild,
In the streamlet and flowers, in the forest and air,
That go up each moment in praise and prayer,
And the children who love them remembered are;
And each brings an answer of peace from Heaven,
And each one whispers, 'Thou art forgiven.'
O, no! holy father, I still must be,
As I ever have been, unchecked and free!"