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,