Classic Poem

There stood a church well known to fame,
St. Michael of the Mount by name,
On Normandy's remotest edge
Upon a cliff's exalted ledge,
Surrounded by the surging tide
Save when, upon the landward side,
(What time the ebbing waves drew back),
Was opened out a beaten track.
The tide rolls inward twice a day
With forcible and rapid sway,
That all, who at the time of flow
Would cross, must at their peril go.
Oft pilgrims to the church repair
To gain in heaven a surer share.
Once, on a certain festival,
On pressed the pious pilgrims all
To celebrate the holy mass,
Just as the waters 'gan to pass.
They fled the narrow path along,
A hasty and tumultuous throng.
One woman, soon to prove at length
A mother, lost her little strength,
Impeded by the bitter smart
Than inly dwelt beneath her heart,
And, in the tumult overthrown,
Upon the shrinking sand lay prone.
To save himself each pilgrim strained,
While she, unheeded, there remained.
Across the others all had run
And now the rocky slope had won,
When horror! they the victim view,
Round whom the waters closer drew.
All other help was now too late,
The help of heaven they supplicate;
While she, who thought her death was near,
Nor saw a human friend appear,
To Jesus and the Virgin prayed,
And to the angels shrieked for aid.
No pilgrim heard her voice's sound,
But yet to heaven a way it found.
On high, the Virgin-mother sweet
Rose quickly from her golden seat,
And, all-compassionate, in haste
A veil around the woman placed,
Who, by its wonder-working might,
Was sheltered from the billows' spite!
For, 'mid the waves that round her flowed,
Was formed for her a dry abode!
The time of ebb was drawing near,
The pilgrims on the strand appear;
They long had deemed the woman lost,
But, as the tide the sand re-crossed,
She from amid the waves was seen
Emerging safe, with joyous mien,
And in her arms' embraces mild
She held a lovely new-born child.
Then gladly priest and lay unite
To glory in the wondrous sight,
Towards her point in glad amaze,
And Jesus and the Virgin praise.