Trappist Monastery
S
HARP and clear on the air a silver singing
Sounds where a sunset bell peals out the
hour.
The monastery, clinging to the hillside,
Sends forth a call from its vine-shrouded tower:
A bright insistent voicing to the faithful,
A call to prayer from rim to valley’s rim,
Acknowledging the power and the glory
Of the Blessed One . . . and now the light grows
dim,
And the shaken air has suddenly ceased throbbing.
The little winds across the world are sweet—
Inside the monastery’s darkened cloisters
There is a silence, utter and complete,
Where the uncommunicative monks are kneeling
In contemplation and in earnest prayer—
Surely if one but listen—one can hear it:
The footsteps of the Eternal moving there.
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