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.