Classic Poem

It stood without a convent gate, an old cross worn and grey,
And 'neath it, sobbing in the mist, the wild sea rolled away;
Across the weather-beaten stone sweet passion flowers clung,
And 'round the letters quaintly carved their clinging tendrils hung.
Yearshad come and years had gone, yet still the children play'd
With laughing lips and sunny eyes beneath the convent's shade;
And when the vesper chimes rang out upon the balmy air,
With solemn eyes and voices hushed they breathed the cross's prayer,
Miserere Domine.

As each life holds its story, so the old cross held its own,
A story known to the flowers and the restless waves alone;
Some strange romantic halo still linked it to the past,
And ghosts of unforgotten years their shadows o'er it cast.
There many a tired wanderer would rest beside the way,
Where hot and fierce the noonday sun across the landscape lay,
Old men with careworn faces and silvery sprinkled hair
In faltering tones gave echo to the cross's silent prayer,
Miserere Domine.

The soft winds crept across it in the fleeting summer hours,
And the gleams of sunset lingered amid the passion flowers;
There life within the high stone walls was perfect in its rest,
A tranquil stream with heaven's light upon its quiet breast.
Oft-times some sad-eyed girl recluse, alone with sea and sky,
Would linger there to whisper to the world a last good-bye,
Ere the convent gate behind her closed, and rang her parting knell,
In the wailing chant that followed the Ave the old prayer rose and fell,
Miserere Domine.

She came when the shadows were falling adown the convent wall,
And o'er the mountains floated the tinkling sheep bells' call.
Her feet were worn and weary, and her eyes were dim with tears,
As she gazed upon her old home, her home of bye-gone years,
When her dauntless soul had hungered and yearned for light afar,
And fled away like a captive bird freed from its prison bar.
She'd left the path behind her to tread the path before,
Though angel hands had held her back and breathed the prayer of yore,
Miserere Domine.

With ruthless hands she'd scattered the lilies of her youth,
To gather Pleasure's roses before the blooms of Truth;
She'd trod a flowery pathway in one brief golden morn,
Yet knew not 'neath each blossom there lurked a cruel thorn;
Her hollow eyes and thin wan face all told a tale of woe,
And her childlike trust had vanished like her rich warm southern glow.
Adown the hillside falling, a darker shadow swept,
And a crown of glory glistened where the passion flowers slept;
But lo! the flowers faded, and a tender face instead
Shone out with eyes of pity beneath a thorn-crowned head.
At the foot of the cross, in shadow, a wild white face had grown,
The face of a miserable sinner, and she knew it for her own,
She knew it, and in her dreaming the past was swept away,
Behind her lay the darkness and before a shining way,—
'Twas only the moonbeams flooding the sea with a mystic glow,
While the lips of the dreamer murmured in broken tones and low,
Miserere Domine.