“Years!” said a voice close by. 
It was an aged monk who spoke,
From a bench of oak
Fastened against the wall;—­
He was the oldest monk of all. 
For a whole century
Had he been there,
Serving God in prayer,
The meekest and humblest of his creatures. 
He remembered well the features
Of Felix, and he said,
Speaking distinct and slow: 
“One hundred years ago,
When I was a novice in this place,
There was here a monk, full of God’s grace,
Who bore the name
Of Felix, and this man must be the same.”

And straightway
They brought forth to the light of day
A volume old and brown,
A huge tome, bound
In brass and wild-boar’s hide,
Wherein were written down
The names of all who had died
In the convent, since it was edified. 
And there they found,
Just as the old monk said,
That on a certain day and date,
One hundred years before,
Had gone forth from the convent gate
The Monk Felix, and never more
Had entered that sacred door. 
He had been counted among the dead! 
And they knew, at last,
That, such had been the power
Of that celestial and immortal song,
A hundred years had passed,
And had not seemed so long
As a single hour!

ELSIE comes in with flowers.

ELSIE. 
Here are flowers for you,
But they are not all for you. 
Some of them are for the Virgin
And for Saint Cecilia.

PRINCE HENRY. 
As thou standest there,
Thou seemest to me like the angel
That brought the immortal roses
To Saint Cecilia’s bridal chamber.

ELSIE. 
But these will fade.

PRINCE HENRY. 
Themselves will fade,
But not their memory,
And memory has the power
To re-create them from the dust. 
They remind me, too,
Of martyred Dorothea,
Who from Celestial gardens sent
Flowers as her witnesses
To him who scoffed and doubted.

ELSIE. 
Do you know the story
Of Christ and the Sultan’s daughter! 
That is the prettiest legend of them all.

PRINCE HENRY. 
Then tell it to me. 
But first come hither. 
Lay the flowers down beside me,
And put both thy hands in mine. 
Now tell me the story.

ELSIE. 
Early in the morning
The Sultan’s daughter
Walked in her father’s garden,
Gathering the bright flowers,
All full of dew.

PRINCE HENRY. 
Just as thou hast been doing
This morning, dearest Elsie.

ELSIE. 
And as she gathered them
She wondered more and more
Who was the Master of the Flowers,
And made them grow
Out of the cold, dark earth. 
“In my heart,” she said,
“I love him; and for him
Would leave my father’s palace,
To labor in his garden.”

PRINCE HENRY. 
Dear, innocent child! 
How sweetly thou recallest
The long-forgotten legend. 
That in my early childhood
My mother told me! 
Upon my brain
It reappears once more,
As a birth-mark on the forehead
When a hand suddenly
Is raised upon it, and removed!