[Skip Navigation]

Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

A Nun

Odell Shepard

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.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Second Book of Modern Verse | 1919
Add Keyword Tags

Separate each tag with a space. You may add as many tags as you'd like to each poem.

What are tags?
Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

More Info

This site will work and look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any Internet device.