"Her novice days went on; much sickness fell
Upon her. Oft she lay for weary weeks
In awful agonies, and no one heard
A murmur from her lips. She oft would smile
A sunny, playful smile, that she might hide
Her sufferings from us all. When she was well
She was the first to meet the hour of prayer --
The last to leave it -- and they named her well:
The `Angel of the Cloister'. Once I heard
The Father of our souls say when she passed
`Beneath that veil of sacrificial black
She wears the white robe of her innocence.'
And we -- we believed it. There are sisters here
Of three-score years of service who would say:
`Within our memory never moved a veil
That hid so saintly and so pure a heart.'
And we -- we felt it, and we loved her so,
We treated her as angel and as child.
I never heard her speak about the past,
I never heard her mention e'en a name
Of any in the world. She little spake;
She seemed to have rapt moments -- then she grew
Absent-minded, and would come and ask me
To walk alone and say her Rosary
Beneath the trees. She had a voice divine;
And when she sang for us, in truth it seemed
The very heart of song was breaking on her lips.
The dower of her mind as of her heart,
Was of the richest, and she mastered art