September 12, 2014

  • Stella Maris Retreat Center, Elberon, New Jersey. (Susan Francois)

A nun takes the veil

I HAVE desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Heaven—Haven,” from Poems 1918.