Ervesiorto
2944

The Carthusian monks in the time ofCortez established small monastery high up on the mountain slopes on the roa lending to Toluen, the capital of the State of Mexico, for th City of Mexico is in a district like Washington
When a bette road was found the convent of El Desierto, which was estala lished to aid travelers, became without any reason for its exist ence, and was abandoned
It is now a ruin, and a favorit place for pienickers
All thy glories now are fled,
Thine inhabitants are dead:
Nought remains save creviced wall,
Crumbling to its destined fall
Desert!

Nightly hoots the owl where rang
Echoes of the psalms they sang
With their webs the spiders cover
Rooms where hooded ghosts may hover,
Desert!

Living foot of monk shall never
Tread again these courts, where sever
Matted roots each pavement stone
Undoing all that man has done
Desert!

On thy cornice grasses wave,
And wild flowers blossom-banners brave
Of Nature’s conquest
Nature still Triumphs over monkish will
Desert!

Soon thy walls shall sink to earth,
Giving to her blooms new birth;
A mound of grass and flowers shall be
The tomb that Nature builds for thee-
Desert!
-Edward Garczynski