Unwavering lay the shadow and the shrine.
‘How lonely,’ so she said, ‘how still, how fair!
Tell me the story why they call this place
St. Francis of the Desert. Silent air,
And silent light sleep here, and silent space.’
‘Once in his wanderings,’ thus I told the tale,
‘St. Francis, overtaken by the night,
Pushed here his bark to shore and furled his sail,
And wearied, slumbered till the morning light.
‘He woke, and saw his brother, the great Sun