Whiteladies First published in a different version in English Heritage Volunteer Focus Magazine

Whiteladies 

[Whiteladies Priory, an English priory of Augustinian canonesses, was dissolved in 1536. The name ‘White Ladies’ refers to the unbleached habits the canonesses wore]
  
I saw them again early this morning , beyond
that  far hedgerow where the rabbits forage. 
They danced like sow thistles to rhythms of 
                                                 time and wind,
their soft unbleached gowns loosed with 
                                               each cilial sway.
Elizabeth la Zouche and Alkice de Kallerhale 
were there, both still longing for escape, 
Joan de Hugford, Alice de Harley too ─ 
                                                     ever-defiant
of bishops and rules with four white hounds
snuffling in the folds of her silver brocade.
I watched their flurrying through cloisters, 
beneath and between arches of pink sandstone
carved with crosses and faces blunted long ago ─
Aldith, Cecily, Agnes and Sarah, Beatrice de Dene, 
Margaret Corbet, Joan Fillilode, Isabel Creghton, 
all chanting the words of St Augustine
Qui cantat, bis orat. Qui cantat, bis orat
to notes of finches scattered on branches,
until Margaret Sandford closed the doors.