No wish for human love was mine:

I heard the hooded vestals sing

The praises of their Love Divine.

The village maids with rival glee,

Flower-filleting their unclipt hair,

Sang thus, “The meadow flowers are we”:

I thought the convent flowers more fair.

Yet false I am not. Still I climb

Through love to realms this earth above:

And those whom most I loved that time