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SAINT VERENA AND SATAN.

A LEGEND OF THE ALPS.

Below Mount Jura lies a vale
Extremely dark and deep and wide,
Where once, if we may trust the tale,
Good Saint Verena lived and died.
A pious damsel, sooth, was she,
Who made her lowly life sublime
With works of grace and charity;
The marvel of her age and clime.
To heal the sick, and teach the young,
And lead the weak in Virtue's ways,
Her daily life,—and every tongue
In all the valley sang her praise,
Save one,—of course the “Evil One,”—
Who, being evermore at strife
With pious folks, left naught undone
To end good Saint Verena's life.
Sometimes he turned, the legends say,
A mountain torrent in her path;
In vain! dry-shod she held her way,
Unhurt, despite the Devil's wrath!
And once a murderer, in the night,
The fiend employed to take her life;
In vain! for when his lantern light
Revealed her face, he dropped his knife.
And so it fell, the Devil's skill
No harm to Saint Verena brought;
He failed to work his wicked will,
And all his malice came to naught.
Enraged, at last he seized a stone,
Intent at once to crush her dead,
(A rock that weighed at least a ton!)
And held it poised above her head.
Whereat she turned, and at the sight
(Such angel-beauty filled her face)
Poor Satan shuddered with affright,
And fain had fled the holy place!
And in his fear he trembled so
He dropped the stone,—down—down it goes!
To fall on Saint Verena?—No!
It falls instead on Satan's toes!
And since that day he limps about,
Unable more to leap or run;
And, that the story none may doubt,
You still may see the very stone;
With five deep marks on either side,
Which—so the pious peasant hints,
Though wicked skeptics may deride—
Are clearly Satan's finger-prints.
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