One glance and I had lost her in the riot
Of tangled cries.
She trod the clamor with a cloistral quiet
Deep in her eyes
...
All night long we had heard the voice of the Sea
Roaming the corridors.
Across the worn and hollow floors
There went a ghostly tread incessantly.
...
As I walked through the dream-peopled streets
Of the wind-rustling, elm-shaded city
Where all of the houses were friends
And the trees were all lovers of her,
...
No lapidary's heaven, no brazier's hell for me,
For I am made of dust and dew and stream and plant and tree:
I'm close akin to boulders, I am cousin to the mud,
And all the winds of all the sky make music in my blood.
...
Odell Shepard (July 22, 1884 Sterling, Illinois - 1967) was an American professor, poet, and politician who was the Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut from 1941 to 1943. He graduated from Harvard University, and taught at the English department of Yale University. A professor of English at Trinity College from 1917 to 1946, he was a mentor to Abbie Huston Evans. He edited the works of Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He wrote Pedlar's Progress, a biography of Bronson Alcott, the father of writer Louisa May Alcott, and one of the foremost Transcendentalists. His papers are held at Trinity College. He died in New London, Connecticut on the 19 June 1967.)
A Nun
One glance and I had lost her in the riot
Of tangled cries.
She trod the clamor with a cloistral quiet
Deep in her eyes
As though she heard the muted music only
That silence makes
Among dim mountain summits and on lonely
Deserted lakes.
There is some broken song her heart remembers
From long ago,
Some love lies buried deep, some passion's embers
Smothered in snow,
Far voices of a joy that sought and missed her
Fail now, and cease . . .
And this has given the deep eyes of God's sister
Their dreadful peace.