Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79.
Written at the Convent near Saint Gall
By James CochraneWith its neat city! whose white shining walls
And village-like circumference scarce recalls
The form of any city we have seen,
But looks like some small picture, so serene
And still it lies! But hark! the convent-bell!
What strange emotions in the bosom swell!
And fair before, now doubly fair the scene.
Such magic ’s in a sound. The mind is stored
With images, requiring but a stroke,
Or gentlest touch, to vibrate at each chord,
And pleasurable feelings to evoke:
It is a prism, whose hues are undisclosed
Till acted on, and to its sun exposed.
As baseless as night dreams, or as the bow,
Spanning the heavens, which from afar a glow
Of beauty seems, radiant, at once, and soft,
Meet path for spirits when they pass aloft,
But aerial and unreal. To my young mind,
A convent brought up images refined
And beautiful, till, standing ’neath their loft,
I heard the sisters, gazing on the wall,
Repeat and re-repeat their weary drawl,
Which the damp vaults cast back as if in scorn;
And learned that prayers ceased not, nor night nor day,
Nor had for ages; when I turned away,
Lamenting over creatures so forlorn.