{
 "id": "george-macdonald/if-i-were-a-monk-and-thou-wert-a-nun",
 "title": "If I Were a Monk, and Thou Wert a Nun",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "George MacDonald",
 "poet_slug": "george-macdonald",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "A Hidden Life and Other Poems",
 "book_slug": "a-hidden-life-and-other-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 3,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1864,
  "venue": "A Hidden Life and Other Poems (1864)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1864 volume A Hidden Life and Other Poems, which is the printing this text derives from rather than the poem's first appearance: the same poems stand at the same page numbers in MacDonald's Poems (London, 1857), so an earlier printing is known and 1864 is not it. Whether the 1857 volume or a periodical printed the poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_N7tfAAAAMAAJ",
   "https://archive.org/details/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft",
   "https://archive.org/metadata/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/george-macdonald_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1953",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8949",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9543",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9984",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10578",
   "https://archive.org/details/bookofstrifeinfo00macd",
   "https://archive.org/details/discipleandothe02macdgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/discipleandothe02macdgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/rampolli00macd",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102955776",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011821572"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 66,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 2
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pacing it wearily, wearily,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Twixt chapel and cell till day were done⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearily, wearily⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "How would it fare with these hearts of ours",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That need the sunshine, and smiles, and flowers?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To prayer, to prayer, at the matins’ call,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Morning foul or fair!⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Such prayer as from weary lips might fall⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Words, but hardly prayer⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "The chapel’s roof, like the law in stone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Caging the lark that up had flown!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The God-revealing,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Turning thy face from the boundless boon⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Painfully kneeling;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Or, in brown-shadowy solitude,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bending thy head o’er the legend rude!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I, in a bare and lonely nook,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gloomily, gloomily,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Poring over some musty book,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thoughtfully, thoughtfully;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Or painting pictures of things of old",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On parchment-margin in purple and gold!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Perchance in slow procession to meet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearily, wearily,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "In antique, narrow, high-gabled street,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearily, wearily;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Thine eyes dark-lifted to mine, and then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heavily sinking to earth again!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sunshine and air! bird-music and spring!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Merrily, merrily!⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Back to its cell each weary thing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearily, wearily!",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Our poor hearts, withered and dry and old,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Most at home in the cloister cold!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou slow rising at vespers’ call,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearily, wearily;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "I looking up on the darkening wall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearily, wearily;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "The chime so sweet to the boat at sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Listless and dead to thee and me!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "At length for sleep a weary assay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the lone couch wearily!",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Rising at midnight again to pray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearily, wearily!",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And if through the dark dear eyes looked in,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sending them far as a thought of sin!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And at last, thy tired soul passing away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dreamily, dreamily⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Its worn tent fluttering in slow decay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sleepily, sleepily⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Over thee held the crucified Best,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But no warm cheek to thy cold cheek pressed!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And then my passing from cell to clay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dreamily, dreamily!",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "My gray head lying on ashes gray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sleepily, sleepily!",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "But no woman-angel hovering above,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ready to clasp me in deathless love!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now, now, ah, now! thy hand in mine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Peacefully, peacefully;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "My arm round thee, and my lips on thine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lovingly, lovingly⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh! is not a better thing to us given",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than wearily going alone to heaven?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}