Oh if it were not for my wife
And family increase,
How gladly would I close my life
In monastery peace!
A sweet and scented isle I know
Where monks in muteness dwell,
And there in sereness I would go
And seek a cell.
On milk and oaten meal I'd live,
With carrot, kail and cheese;
The greens that tiny gardens give,
The bounty of the bees.
Then war might rage, I would not know,
Or knowing would not care:
No echo of a world of woe
Would irk me there.
And I would be forgotten too
As mankind I forgot;
Read Shakespeare and the Bible through,
And brood in quiet thought.
Content with birds and trees and flowers
In mellow age to find
'Mid monastery's holy hours
God's Peace of Mind.
