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 flare

Of spotted green, and a snake had gone

Into the bed where the snowdrops shone

In green new-started,

Their white bells parted.

Two by two, in a long brown line,

The nuns were walking to breathe the fine

Bright April air. They must go in soon

And work at their tasks all the afternoon.

But this time is theirs!

They walk in pairs.

First comes the Abbess, preoccupied

And slow, as a woman often tried,

With her temper in bond. Then the oldest nun.

Then younger and younger, until the last one

Has a laugh on her lips,

And fairly skips.

They wind about the gravel walks

And all the long line buzzes and talks.

They step in time to the ringing bell,

With scarcely a shadow. The sun is well

In the core of a sky

Domed silverly.

Sister Marguerite said: “The pears will

soon bud.”

Sister Angelique said she must get her spud

And 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 wall

To see if a lizard were basking there.

She looked across the garden to where

A sycamore

Flanked the garden door.

She was restless, although her little feet danced,

And quite unsatisfied, for it chanced

Her morning’s work had hung in her mind

And would not take form. She could not find

The beautifulness

For 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 white

Roses, or sparked like a frosty night?

Or a crimson sheen

Over some sort of green?

But Clotilde’s eyes saw nothing new

In all the garden, no single hue

So lovely or so marvellous

That its use would not seem impious.

So on she walked,

And the others talked.

Sister Elisabeth edged away

From 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 stitching

And 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 wound

A crested snake,

With his eyes awake.

His body was green with a metal brightness

Like an emerald set in a kind of whiteness,

And all down his curling length were disks,

Evil vermilion asterisks,

They paled and flooded

As 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 slot

The sparkles shot.

The nuns huddled tightly together, fear

Catching their senses. But Clotilde must peer

More closely at the beautiful snake,

She seemed entranced and eased. Could she make

Colours 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 Clotilde

Was the last to yield.

When the recreation hour was done

Each went in to her task. Alone

In the library, with its great north light,

Clotilde wrought at an exquisite

Wreath of flowers

For her Book of Hours.

She twined the little crocus blooms

With snowdrops and daffodils, the glooms

Of laurel leaves were interwoven

With Stars-of-Bethlehem, and cloven

Fritillaries,

Whose colour varies.

They framed the picture she had made,

Half-delighted and half-afraid.

In a courtyard with a lozenged floor

The Virgin watched, and through the arched door

The angel came

Like 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 waited

With eyes dilated.

Her face was quiet and innocent,

And beautiful with her strange assent.

A silver thread about her head

Her halo was poised. But in the stead

Of her gown, there remained

The vellum, unstained.

Clotilde painted the flowers patiently,

Lingering over each tint and dye.

She could spend great pains, now she had seen

That curious, unimagined green.

A colour so strange

It had seemed to change.

She thought it had altered while she gazed.

At first it had been simple green; then glazed

All over with twisting flames, each spot

A molten colour, trembling and hot,

And every eye

Seemed to liquefy.

She had made a plan, and her spirits danced.

After all, she had only glanced

At that wonderful snake, and she must know

Just what hues made the creature throw

Those splashes and sprays

Of 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 shine

Of 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 eyes

On the window-square

Till light should be there.

The faintest shadow of a branch

Fell on the floor. Clotilde, grown staunch

With solemn purpose, softly rose

And fluttered down between the rows

Of sleeping nuns.

She almost runs.

She must go out through the little side door

Lest the nuns who were always praying before

The Virgin’s altar should hear her pass.

She pushed the bolts, and over the grass

The red moon’s brim

Mounted its rim.

Her shadow crept up the convent wall

As she swiftly left it, over all

The garden lay the level glow

Of 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 queerer

Than ever before. The snowdrop bed

Was reached and she bent down her head.

On the striped ground

The 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 thick

Wriggling 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 dress

In his loveliness.

The gardener was covering his new-set plants

For the night was chilly, and nothing daunts

Your lover of growing things. He spied

Something to do and turned aside,

And the moonlight streamed

On Clotilde, and gleamed.

His business finished the gardener rose.

He shook and swore, for the moonlight shows

A girl with a fire-tongued serpent, she

Grasping him, laughing, while quietly

Her eyes are weeping.

Is he sleeping?

He thinks it is some holy vision,

Brushes that aside and with decision

Jumps — and hits the snake with his stick,

Crushes his spine, and then with quick,

Urgent command

Takes her hand.

The gardener sucks the poison and spits,

Cursing and praying as befits

A poor old man half out of his wits.

“Whatever possessed you, Sister, it’s

Hatched of a devil

And very evil.

It’s one of them horrid basilisks

You read about. They say a man risks

His life to touch it, but I guess I’ve sucked it

Out by now. Lucky I chucked it

Away from you.

I guess you’ll do.”

“Oh, no, Francois, this beautiful beast

Was sent to me, to me the least

Worthy in all our convent, so I

Could finish my picture of the Most High

And Holy Queen,

In her dress of green.

He is dead now, but his colours won’t fade

At once, and by noon I shall have made

The Virgin’s robe. Oh, Francois, see

How 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 vented

Her creed. He repented.

“He can’t do no more harm, Sister,” said he.

“Paint as much as you like.” And gingerly

He picked up the snake with his stick. Clotilde

Thanked him, and begged that he would shield

Her secret, though itching

To 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 moon

Made her beautiful snake-skin sparkle, and soon

In her bed she lay

And waited for day.

At dawn’s first saffron-spired warning

Clotilde was up. And all that morning,

Except when she went to the chapel to pray,

She painted, and when the April day

Was hot with sun,

Clotilde had done.

Done! She drooped, though her heart

beat loud

At the beauty before her, and her spirit bowed

To 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 saint

Enmeshed in Heaven’s beatitude.

A sudden clamour hurled its rude

Force to break

Her vision awake.

The door nearly leapt from its hinges, pushed

By the multitude of nuns. They hushed

When they saw Clotilde, in perfect quiet,

Smiling, a little perplexed at the riot.

And all the hive

Buzzed “She’s alive!”

Old Francois had told. He had found

the strain

Of silence too great, and preferred the pain

Of 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 guessed

Our convent so blessed!

A miracle! But Oh! My Lamb!

To have you die! And I, who am

A hollow, living shell, the grave

Is empty of me. Holy Mary, I crave

To be taken, Dear Mother,

Instead of this other.”

She dropped on her knees and silently prayed,

With anguished hands and tears delayed

To a painful slowness. The minutes drew

To fractions. Then the west wind blew

The sound of a bell,

On a gusty swell.

It came skipping over the slates of the roof,

And the bright bell-notes seemed a reproof

To grief, in the eye of so fair a day.

The Abbess, comforted, ceased to pray.

And the sun lit the flowers

In Clotilde’s Book of Hours.

It glistened the green of the Virgin’s dress

And made the red spots, in a flushed excess,

Pulse and start; and the violet wings

Of the angel were colour which shines and sings.

The book seemed a choir

Of rainbow fire.

The Abbess crossed herself, and each nun

Did the same, then one by one,

They filed to the chapel, that incensed prayers

Might plead for the life of this sister of theirs.

Clotilde, the Inspired!

She only felt tired.

*

* * * *

The old chronicles say she did not die

Until heavy with years. And that is why

There hangs in the convent church a basket

Of osiered silver, a holy casket,

And treasured therein

A dried snake-skin.

***

More poems by Amy Lowell