Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem

I heard the bells on Christmas Their old familiar carols play, And wild and The words

Half of my life is gone, and I have let The years slip from me and have not fulfilled The aspiration of my youth, to build Some tower of song with lofty parapet. Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret

In the long, sleepless watches of the night, A gentle face — the face of one long dead — Looks at me from the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. Here in this room she died; and soul more…

I stood on the bridge at midnight, As the clocks were striking the hour, And the moon rose o'er the city, Behind the dark church-tower. I saw her bright reflection In the waters under me, Like a golden goblet falling And sinking…

When the warm sun, that Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,'T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs The first flower of the plain. I love the season well

The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep; The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told! The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold To the red rising moon, and loud and deep The nightingale is singing from the steep;

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis, Et fugiunt freno non remorante ID, Fastorum,