Only the self-jailed jailbirds—monastery

Or poet’s attic—know that knack of winning

Peace out of pangs of lonely disciplining

When form and content (soul, flesh) shotgun-marry.

Wrestling with Satan lest he tempt the unwary

To lusting after clichés or to sinning,

They seek that Word which was in the beginning,

With Bible or with rhyming dictionary.

But what when doubt’s loud nightly wolf-pack rages?

Then, staring thought down like a dog, monks win

Their peace back in the colored prints of bliss

Which beam from walls. But reeling from his pages

The poet’s eye meets but the hungry grin

Of the—what shall we call it?—the Abyss.