Debris

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Title: Debris
Selections from Poems
Author: Madge Morris
Release Date: June 22, 2005 [eBook #16108]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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E-text prepared by Michael Gray ([email protected] )
DEBRIS
Selections from Poems
by
MADGE MORRIS
Sacramento?H. S. Crocker & Co., Printers
1881
_To the one who, reading, may fancy--?With a kindly thought for me--?There's a grain of gold in its driftings,?I dedicate this "Debris."_
PREFACE
The waif is born of emergency, and timidly launched on the rough sea of opinion. Critic, touch it gently; it assumes nothing--has nothing to assume; and your scalpel can only pain its
AUTHOR
CONTENTS
Mystery of Carmel?Wasted Hours?Rocking the Baby?"I Don't Care"?A Stained Lily?A Valentine?Which One?Life's Way?Uncle Sam's Soliloquy?Nay, Do Not Ask?A Picture?Hang Up Your Stocking?Opening the Gate for Papa?White Honeysuckle?Estrangement?Bring Flowers?Good-Bye?In the Twilight?Home?Why??Out in the Cold?To Jennie?Watching the Shadows?I Give Thee Back Thy Heart?Light Beyond?A Neglected "Woman's Right"?Would You Care??A Thought of Heaven?Consolance?When the Roses Go?The Difference?Beware?A Regret?"It is Life to Die"?O, Speak it Not?A Shattered Idol?Poor Little Joe?Fate?The Ghosts in the Heart?Only a Tramp?Put Flowers on My Grave?Old Aunt Lucy?Unspoken Words?O! Take Away Your Flowers?Rain?I love Him for His Eyes?Only?Somebody's Baby's Dead?The Withered Rosebud?My Ships Have Come From Sea
MYSTERY OF CARMEL.
The Mission floor was with weeds o'ergrown,?And crumbling and shaky its walls of stone;?Its roof of tiles, in tiers and tiers,?Had stood the storms of a hundred years.?An olden, weird, medieval style?Clung to the mouldering, gloomy pile,?And the rhythmic voice of the breaking waves?Sang a lonesome dirge in its land of graves.?As I walked in the Mission old and gray--
The Mission Carmel at Monterey.
An ancient owl went fluttering by,?Scared from his haunt. His mournful cry?Wakened the echoes, till roof and wall?Caught and re-echoed the dismal call?Again and again, till it seemed to me?Some Jesuit soul, in mockery--?Stripped of rosary, gown, and cowl--?Haunted the place, in this dreary owl.?Surely I shivered with fright that day,?Alone in the Mission, old and gray--
The Mission Carmel at Monterey.
Near the chapel vault was a dungeon grim,?And they say that many a chanted hymn?Has rung a knell on the moldy air?For luckless errant prisoned there,?As kneeling monk and pious nun?Sang orison at set of sun.?A single window, dark and small,?Showed opening in the heavy wall,?Nor other entrance seemed attained?That erst had human footstep gained.?I paused before the uncanny place?And peered me into its darksome space.?Had it of secret aught to tell,?That locked up darkness kept it well.?I turned, and lo! by my side there stood?A being of strangest naturehood.?Startled, I glanced him o'er and o'er,?Wondering I noted him not before.?His form was stooped with the weight of years,?And on his cheek was a trace of tears;?Over all his face a shade of pain?That deepened and vanished, and came again.?Fixed he his woeful eyes on me--?Through my very soul they seemed to see.?And lightly he laid his hand on mine--?His hand was cold as the vestal shrine.?"'Tis haunted," he said, "haunted, and he?Who dares at night-noon go with me?To this cursed place, by phantoms trod,?Must fear not devil, man, nor God."?"Tell me the story," I cried, "tell me!"?And frightened was I at my bravery.?A curious smile his thin lips curved,?That well had my bravery unnerved.?And this is the story he told that day?To me in the Mission old and gray--
The Mission Carmel at Monterey.
"Each midnight, since have seventy years?Begun their cycle around the spheres,?Two faces have looked from that window there.?One is a woman's, young and fair,?With tender eyes and floating hair.?Love, and regret, and dumb despair,?Are told in each tint of the fair sweet face.?The other is crowned with a courtly grace,?Gazing, with all a lover's pride,?On the beautiful woman by his side.?Anon! a change flits o'er his mien,?And baffled rage in his glance is seen.?Paler they grow as the hours go by,?With the pallor that comes with the summons to die.?Slowly fading, and shrinking away,?Clutched in the grasp of a gaunt decay,?Till the herald of morn on the sky is thrown;?Then a shriek, a curse, and a dying moan,?Comes from that death-black window there.?A mocking laugh rings out on the air,?From that darkful place, in the nascent dawn,?And the faces that looked from the window are gone.?Seventy years, when the Spanish flag?Floated above yon beetling crag,?And this dearthful mission place was rife?With the panoply of busy life;?Hard by, where yon canyon, deep and wide,?Sweeps it adown the mountain side,?A cavalier dwelt with his beautiful bride.?Oft to the priestal shrive went she;?As often, stealthily, followed 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