As early as 1238, Saracen pressure had led to the return of some Carmelite hermits to the West—to Cyprus, England, Sicily, France—and to their assuming the life of mendicant friars. By 1291 the Latin Kingdom was conquered. The historian Fr. Joachim Smet, O.Carm., is also a poet, and many years ago he composed a ballad about the end of Carmelite religious life on Mount Carmel. It would be many centuries before there would again be a Carmelite presence there. In 1634 the Discalced Carmelites returned and, in spite of setbacks, have managed to survive: they now staff a monastery on the headland of Mt. Carmel, with the sanctuary of Stella Maris and shrine of Flos Carmeli. Excavations of recent years have uncovered the ruins of the earliest Carmelite foundations. For many centuries, at general chapters of the Order a delegate would be appointed to represent the long-gone parent community on Mount Carmel. Here is Father Smet’s poem:

THE SALVE REGINA HOUR

Mount Carmel’s sides are tall and
    steep
And bright with many a flower,
But not too steep for the Turk to
   climb
At the Salve Regina hour.

The sun sank down in the western
   sea,
Sank down in his blood-red bower,
But not so red as the choir stalls
At the Salve Regina hour.

We heard the tinkling of swords and
   spears,
Like a Vesper-bell’s brittle shower,
And the puffing of horses that rode
   from dawn
To the Salve Regina hour.

‘Some Christians knights are come,’
   we thought.
‘To mingle their voices with ours.
To pray for the weal of the Savior’s
   tomb
At the Salve Regina hour.’

But the Turks rushed in with their
   scimitars
In a flashing tide of power,
And they butchered the hermits as
   they sang
At the Salve Regina hour.

We pray you, brethren, to think of
   us
Whom the sword has sought to
   devour,
And finish the song that we once
   began
At the Salve Regina hour.