Debris | Page 2

he.
The padre Sanson absolved
and blessed
The penitent, and the sin-distressed,
Nor ever before
won devotee
So wondrous a reverence as he.
A-night, when the
winds played wild and high,
And the ocean rocked it to the sky,
An
earthquake trembled the shore along,
Hushing on lip of praise its
song,
And jarred to its center this Mission strong.
When the
morning broke with a summer sun,

The earth was at rest, the storm
was done.
Still the Mission tower'd in its stately pride;
Still the
cottage smiled by the canyon-side;
But never the priest was there to
bless,
And the cottage roof was tenantless.
Vainly they sought for
the padre, dead,
For the cottage dwellers; amazed, they said
'Twas a
miracle; but since that day
There's a ghost in the Mission old and
gray--
The Mission Carmel of Monterey

"A sequel there is to that tale," said he,
"Of the way and the truth I
hold the key."
"Show me the way," I cried, "Show me
To the depth
of this curious mystery!"
He waved me to follow; my heart stood still

Under the ban of a mightier will
Than mine. A terror of icy chill

O'er-shivered my being from hand to brain,
Freezing the blood in
each pulsing vein,
As I followed this most mysterious guide

Through the solid floor at the chancel side,
Into a passage whose
stifling breath
Reeked with the pestilence of death.
Down through a
subterranean vault,
Over broken steps with never a halt,
Till we
stood in the midst of a spacious room,
A charnel-house in its shroud
of gloom.
Only a window, narrow and small,
Left in the build of the
heavy wall,
Through which the flickering sunbeams died,
Showed
passway to the world outside.
Slowly my eyes to the darkness grew,

And I saw in the gloom, or rather knew,
That my feet had touched
two skeleton forms,
One closely clasped in the other's arms.

Recoiling, I shuddered and turned my face
From the fleshless
mockery of embrace.
Again o'er a heap of rubbish and rust,
I
stumbled and caught in the moth and dust
What hardly a sense of my
soul believes--
A mold-stained package of parchment leaves!
A
hideous bat flapped into my face!
O'ercome with horror, I fled the
place,
And stood again with my curious guide
On the solid floor, at
the chancel's side.
But, lo! in a moment the age-bowed seer
Was a
darkly frowning cavalier,
Gazing no longer in woeful trance,

Vengeance blazed in his every glance.
Then a mocking laugh rang the
Mission o'er,
And I stood alone by the chapel door;
And, save for
the mold-stained parchment leaves,
I had thought it the vision that
night-mare weaves.
Hardly a sense of my soul believes,
Yet I held
in my hand the parchment leaves.
Careful I noted them, one by one,

Each was a letter in rhyming run,
Written over and over, in
tenderest strain,
By fingers that never will write again.
I strung
them together, a tale to tell,
And named it "The Mystery of Carmel."

And these are the letters I found that day,
In the mission ruin, old
and gray--

The Mission Carmel of Monterey:
TO THE HOLY FATHER SANSON
Oh, holy father, list thee to my prayer!
I may not kneel to thee as
others kneel,
And tell my heart-aches with the suppliant's air,
But
fiercer burns the fire I must conceal.
My soul is groping in the mists of doubt,
The sunlight and the
shadows all are gone,
Only a cold, gray cloud my life's about,
Nor
ever vision of a fairer dawn.
A father ne'er my brow in loving smoothed,
Nor taught my baby
tongue to lisp his name;
No mother's voice my childish sorrows
soothed,
Nor sought my wild, imperious will to tame.
Yet ran my life, like some bright bubbling spring,
Too full of
thoughtless happiness to care
If that the future might more gladness
bring,
Or might its skies be clouded or be fair.
Afar upon the purple hills of Spain--
Since waned the moons of half a
year ago--
I sported, reckless as the laughing main,
Nor dreamed in
life a thought of grief to know.
To-day I pine here in a chain whose gall
Is bitterer than drop of
wormwood brought
From that salt sea where nothing lives, and all

The recompense my willfulness has brought.
Oh, holy father, list thee to my prayer!
And though I may not kneel as
others kneel,
And tell my heart-aches with a suppliant air,
I crave
they grace a sickened soul to heal.
Here, close beside this sacred font of gold,
My humble prayer, oh,
father, I will lay,
With all its weight of misery untold;
And wait
impatient that which thou wilt say

REVENITA.
TO REVENITA
When to the font, this morn, my lips I pressed,
A fairy's gift my
fingers trembled o'er;
A sweeter prayer ne'er smile of angel blessed,

Nor gemmed a tiar that the priesthood wore.
The secret of they grief I may not know,
Since that thy lips refuse the
tale to tell;
Methinks, dear child, it was the sound of woe
That woke
an echo in my heart's deep well.
The wail of a spirit that a-yearning gropes
In darkness for the sunlight
that is fled;
A broken idol in secret wept, and hopes--
Crushed
hopes--that are to thee as are the dead.
A tender memory