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Gainst the high mast, intent on book and beads, 

 A reverend abbot leans, and prays, and reads : 

 Yet oft with secret glance the pair surveys, 

 Marks how she looks, and listens what he says. 

 An idle task ! The terms which speak their love 

 Had served for prayer, and passed unblamed above. 

 He finds each tender phrase so free from harm, 

 So pure each thought, each look so chaste though warm, 

 Still to his book and beads he turns again, 

 Pleased to have found his guardian care so vain ; 

 While oft a blush of shame his pale cheek wears, 

 To find his thoughts so much less pure than their s. 



Oh ! they were pure ! pure as the moon, whose ray 

 Loves on the shrines of virgin-saints to play; 

 Pure as the falling snow, ere yet its shower 

 Bends with its weight its own pale fragile flower. 

 Not fourteen years were Irza's ; nay, 'tis true, 

 Most maids at twelve know more than Irza knew : 

 And scarce two more had spread with silken down 

 Her youthful cousin's cheek of glowing brown. 

 His tutor sage (in fact, not show, a saint) 

 Had kept his heart and mind secure from taint. 

 In liberal arts, in healthful manly sports, 

 In studies fit for councils, camps, and courts, 

 His moments found their full and best employ, 

 Nor left one leisure hour for guilty joy. 

 Since her blue dove-like eyes six springs had seen, 

 Immured in cloistered shades had Irza been, 

 From duties done her sole delight deriven, 

 And her sole care to please the queen of heaven. 

 None e'er approached her, save the pure and good : 

 Her promised spouse ; that monk who near them stood ; 

 Her viceroy uncle, and some guardian nun 

 Were all she e'er had seen by moon or sun. 

 No amorous forms, by wanton art designed, 

 Had e'er inflamed her blood, or stained her mind ; 



