The Book of Hours of Sister Clotilde

The Bell in the convent tower swung.High overhead the great sun hung,A navel for the curving sky.The air was a blue clarity.Swallows flew,And a cock crew.

The iron clanging sank through the light air,Rustled over with blowing branches. A flareOf spotted green, and a snake had goneInto the bed where the snowdrops shoneIn green new-started,Their white bells parted.

Two by two, in a long brown line,The nuns were walking to breathe the fineBright April air. They must go in soonAnd work at their tasks all the afternoon.But this time is theirs!They walk in pairs.

First comes the Abbess, preoccupiedAnd slow, as a woman often tried,With her temper in bond. Then the oldest nun.Then younger and younger, until the last oneHas a laugh on her lips,And fairly skips.

They wind about the gravel walksAnd all the long line buzzes and talks.They step in time to the ringing bell,With scarcely a shadow. The sun is wellIn the core of a skyDomed silverly.

Sister Marguerite said: "The pears will soon bud."Sister Angelique said she must get her spudAnd free the earth round the jasmine roots.Sister Veronique said: "Oh, look at those shoots!There's a crocus up,With a purple cup."

But Sister Clotilde said nothing at all,She looked up and down the old grey wallTo see if a lizard were basking there.She looked across the garden to whereA sycamoreFlanked the garden door.

She was restless, although her little feet danced,And quite unsatisfied, for it chancedHer morning's work had hung in her mindAnd would not take form. She could not findThe beautifulnessFor the Virgin's dress.

Should it be of pink, or damasked blue?Or perhaps lilac with gold shotted through?Should it be banded with yellow and whiteRoses, or sparked like a frosty night?Or a crimson sheenOver some sort of green?

But Clotilde's eyes saw nothing newIn all the garden, no single hueSo lovely or so marvellousThat its use would not seem impious.So on she walked,And the others talked.

Sister Elisabeth edged awayFrom what her companion had to say,For Sister Marthe saw the world in little,She weighed every grain and recorded each tittle.She did plain stitchingAnd worked in the kitchen.

"Sister Radegonde knows the apples won't last,I told her so this Friday past.I must speak to her before Compline."Her words were like dust motes in slanting sunshine.The other nun sighed,With her pleasure quite dried.

Suddenly Sister Berthe cried out:"The snowdrops are blooming!" They turned about.The little white cups bent over the ground,And in among the light stems woundA crested snake,With his eyes awake.

His body was green with a metal brightnessLike an emerald set in a kind of whiteness,And all down his curling length were disks,Evil vermilion asterisks,They paled and floodedAs wounds fresh-blooded.

His crest was amber glittered with blue,And opaque so the sun came shining through.It seemed a crown with fiery points.When he quivered all down his scaly joints,From every slotThe sparkles shot.

The nuns huddled tightly together, fearCatching their senses. But Clotilde must peerMore closely at the beautiful snake,She seemed entranced and eased. Could she makeColours so rare,The dress were there.

The Abbess shook off her lethargy."Sisters, we will walk on," said she.Sidling away from the snowdrop bed,The line curved forwards, the Abbess ahead.Only ClotildeWas the last to yield.

When the recreation hour was doneEach went in to her task. AloneIn the library, with its great north light,Clotilde wrought at an exquisiteWreath of flowersFor her Book of Hours.

She twined the little crocus bloomsWith snowdrops and daffodils, the gloomsOf laurel leaves were interwovenWith Stars-of-Bethlehem, and clovenFritillaries,Whose colour varies.

They framed the picture she had made,Half-delighted and half-afraid.In a courtyard with a lozenged floorThe Virgin watched, and through the arched doorThe angel cameLike a springing flame.

His wings were dipped in violet fire,His limbs were strung to holy desire.He lowered his head and passed under the arch,And the air seemed beating a solemn march.The Virgin waitedWith eyes dilated.

Her face was quiet and innocent,And beautiful with her strange assent.A silver thread about her headHer halo was poised. But in the steadOf her gown, there remainedThe vellum, unstained.

Clotilde painted the flowers patiently,Lingering over each tint and dye.She could spend great pains, now she had seenThat curious, unimagined green.A colour so strangeIt had seemed to change.

She thought it had altered while she gazed.At first it had been simple green; then glazedAll over with twisting flames, each spotA molten colour, trembling and hot,And every eyeSeemed to liquefy.

She had made a plan, and her spirits danced.After all, she had only glancedAt that wonderful snake, and she must knowJust what hues made the creature throwThose splashes and spraysOf prismed rays.

When evening prayers were sung and said,The nuns lit their tapers and went to bed.And soon in the convent there was no light,For the moon did not rise until late that night,Only the shineOf the lamp at the shrine.

Clotilde lay still in her trembling sheets.Her heart shook her body with its beats.She could not see till the moon should rise,So she whispered prayers and kept her eyesOn the window-squareTill light should be there.

The faintest shadow of a branchFell on the floor. Clotilde, grown staunchWith solemn purpose, softly roseAnd fluttered down between the rowsOf sleeping nuns.She almost runs.

She must go out through the little side doorLest the nuns who were always praying beforeThe Virgin's altar should hear her pass.She pushed the bolts, and over the grassThe red moon's brimMounted its rim.

Her shadow crept up the convent wallAs she swiftly left it, over allThe garden lay the level glowOf a moon coming up, very big and slow.The gravel glistened.She stopped and listened.

It was still, and the moonlight was getting clearer.She laughed a little, but she felt queererThan ever before. The snowdrop bedWas reached and she bent down her head.On the striped groundThe snake was wound.

For a moment Clotilde paused in alarm,Then she rolled up her sleeve and stretched out her arm.She thought she heard steps, she must be quick.She darted her hand out, and seized the thickWriggling slime,Only just in time.

The old gardener came muttering down the path,And his shadow fell like a broad, black swath,And covered Clotilde and the angry snake.He bit her, but what difference did that make!The Virgin should dressIn his loveliness.

The gardener was covering his new-set plantsFor the night was chilly, and nothing dauntsYour lover of growing things. He spiedSomething to do and turned aside,And the moonlight streamedOn Clotilde, and gleamed.

His business finished the gardener rose.He shook and swore, for the moonlight showsA girl with a fire-tongued serpent, sheGrasping him, laughing, while quietlyHer eyes are weeping.Is he sleeping?

He thinks it is some holy vision,Brushes that aside and with decisionJumps--and hits the snake with his stick,Crushes his spine, and then with quick,Urgent commandTakes her hand.

The gardener sucks the poison and spits,Cursing and praying as befitsA poor old man half out of his wits."Whatever possessed you, Sister, it'sHatched of a devilAnd very evil.

It's one of them horrid basilisksYou read about. They say a man risksHis life to touch it, but I guess I've sucked itOut by now. Lucky I chucked itAway from you.I guess you'll do."

"Oh, no, Francois, this beautiful beastWas sent to me, to me the leastWorthy in all our convent, so ICould finish my picture of the Most HighAnd Holy Queen,In her dress of green.

He is dead now, but his colours won't fadeAt once, and by noon I shall have madeThe Virgin's robe. Oh, Francois, seeHow kindly the moon shines down on me!I can't die yet,For the task was set."

"You won't die now, for I've sucked it away,"Grumbled old Francois, "so have your play.If the Virgin is set on snake's colours so strong,--""Francois, don't say things like that, it is wrong."So Clotilde ventedHer creed. He repented.

"He can't do no more harm, Sister," said he."Paint as much as you like." And gingerlyHe picked up the snake with his stick. ClotildeThanked him, and begged that he would shieldHer secret, though itchingTo talk in the kitchen.

The gardener promised, not very pleased,And Clotilde, with the strain of adventure eased,Walked quickly home, while the half-high moonMade her beautiful snake-skin sparkle, and soonIn her bed she layAnd waited for day.

At dawn's first saffron-spired warningClotilde was up. And all that morning,Except when she went to the chapel to pray,She painted, and when the April dayWas hot with sun,Clotilde had done.

Done! She drooped, though her heart beat loudAt the beauty before her, and her spirit bowedTo the Virgin her finely-touched thought had made.A lady, in excellence arrayed,And wonder-souled.Christ's Blessed Mould!

From long fasting Clotilde felt weary and faint,But her eyes were starred like those of a saintEnmeshed in Heaven's beatitude.A sudden clamour hurled its rudeForce to breakHer vision awake.

The door nearly leapt from its hinges, pushedBy the multitude of nuns. They hushedWhen they saw Clotilde, in perfect quiet,Smiling, a little perplexed at the riot.And all the hiveBuzzed "She's alive!"

Old Francois had told. He had found the strainOf silence too great, and preferred the painOf a conscience outraged. The news had spread,And all were convinced Clotilde must be dead.For Francois, to spite them,Had not seen fit to right them.

The Abbess, unwontedly trembling and mild,Put her arms round Clotilde and wept, "My child,Has the Holy Mother showed you this grace,To spare you while you imaged her face?How could we have guessedOur convent so blessed!

A miracle! But Oh! My Lamb!To have you die! And I, who amA hollow, living shell, the graveIs empty of me. Holy Mary, I craveTo be taken, Dear Mother,Instead of this other."

She dropped on her knees and silently prayed,With anguished hands and tears delayedTo a painful slowness. The minutes drewTo fractions. Then the west wind blewThe sound of a bell,On a gusty swell.

It came skipping over the slates of the roof,And the bright bell-notes seemed a reproofTo grief, in the eye of so fair a day.The Abbess, comforted, ceased to pray.And the sun lit the flowersIn Clotilde's Book of Hours.

It glistened the green of the Virgin's dressAnd made the red spots, in a flushed excess,Pulse and start; and the violet wingsOf the angel were colour which shines and sings.The book seemed a choirOf rainbow fire.

The Abbess crossed herself, and each nunDid the same, then one by one,They filed to the chapel, that incensed prayersMight plead for the life of this sister of theirs.Clotilde, the Inspired!

The old chronicles say she did not dieUntil heavy with years. And that is whyThere hangs in the convent church a basketOf osiered silver, a holy casket,And treasured thereinA dried snake-skin.