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