By Acqua Fredda's cloister-wall
I pause to feel the mountain breeze,
And watch the shadows eastward fall
From immemorial cypress trees.

Like arms outstretched to bless and pray,
Those dusky phantoms downward creep
To where, by Lenno's curving bay,
The peaceful village seems to sleep;

While mirrored peaks of stainless snow
Turn crimson 'neath the farther shore,
And here and there the sunset glow
Threads diamonds on a dripping oar.

But now a tremor breaks the spell,
And stirs to life the languid air,—
It is the convent's vesper-bell,—
The plaintive call to evening prayer;

That prayer which rises like a sigh
From every sorrow-laden breast,
When twilight dims the garish sky,
And day is dying in the west.

Ave Maria! we who miss
A mother's love, a mother's care,
Implore thee, bring us to that bliss
We fondly hope with thee to share!

How sweet and clear, how soft and low
Those vesper orisons are sung,
In Rome's grand speech of long ago,
Forever old, forever young!

And those who chant,—that exiled band,
Expelled from France with scorn and hate,
How fare they in this foreign land?
Is life for them disconsolate?

Have they escaped the sight of pain,
Of social strife, of hopeless tears?
Does life's dark problem grow more plain,
As pass in prayer the tranquil years?

I know not; dare not ask of them;
Their souls are read by God alone;
But he who would their lives condemn,
Should pause before he cast a stone.

So full is life of hate and greed,
So vain the world's poor tinselled show,
What wonder that some souls have need
To flee from all its sin and woe?

I would not join them; yet, in truth,
I feel, in leaving them at prayer,
That something precious of my youth,
Long lost to me, is treasured there.