Complete Poetical Works - Bret Harte 5 стр.

     Act first, scene first.  A study.  Of a kind
       Half cell, half salon, opulent yet grave;
     Rare books, low-shelved, yet far above the mind
       Of common man to compass or to crave;
     Some slight relief of pamphlets that inclined
       The soul at first to trifling, till, dismayed
     By text and title, it drew back resigned,
       Nor cared with levity to vex a shade
       That to itself such perfect concord made.

     Some thoughts like these perplexed the patriot brain
       Of Jones, Lawgiver to the Commonwealth,
     As on the threshold of this chaste domain
       He paused expectant, and looked up in stealth
     To darkened canvases that frowned amain,
       With stern-eyed Puritans, who first began
     To spread their roots in Georgius Primus' reign,
       Nor dropped till now, obedient to some plan,
       Their century fruit,the perfect Boston man.

     Somewhere within that Russia-scented gloom
       A voice catarrhal thrilled the Member's ear:
     "Brief is our business, Jones.  Look round this room!
       Regard yon portraits!  Read their meaning clear!
     These much proclaim MY station.  I presume
       YOU are our Congressman, before whose wit
     And sober judgment shall the youth appear
       Who for West Point is deemed most just and fit
       To serve his country and to honor it."

     "Such is my son!  Elsewhere perhaps 'twere wise
       Trial competitive should guide your choice.
     There are some people I can well surmise
       Themselves must show their merits.  History's voice
     Spares me that trouble: all desert that lies
       In yonder ancestor of Queen Anne's day,
     Or yon grave Governor, is all my boy's,
       Reverts to him; entailed, as one might say;
       In brief, result in Winthrop Adams Grey!"

     He turned and laid his well-bred hand, and smiled,
       On the cropped head of one who stood beside.
     Ah me! in sooth it was no ruddy child
       Nor brawny youth that thrilled the father's pride;
     'Twas but a Mind that somehow had beguiled
       From soulless Matter processes that served
     For speech and motion and digestion mild,
       Content if all one moral purpose nerved,
       Nor recked thereby its spine were somewhat curved.

     He was scarce eighteen.  Yet ere he was eight
       He had despoiled the classics; much he knew
     Of Sanskrit; not that he placed undue weight
       On this, but that it helped him with Hebrew,
     His favorite tongue.  He learned, alas! too late,
       One can't begin too early,would regret
     That boyish whim to ascertain the state
       Of Venus' atmosphere made him forget
       That philologic goal on which his soul was set.

     He too had traveled; at the age of ten
       Found Paris empty, dull except for art
     And accent.  "Mabille" with its glories then
       Less than Egyptian "Almees" touched a heart
     Nothing if not pure classic.  If some men
       Thought him a prig, it vexed not his conceit,
     But moved his pity, and ofttimes his pen,
       The better to instruct them, through some sheet
       Published in Boston, and signed "Beacon Street."

     From premises so plain the blind could see
       But one deduction, and it came next day.
     "In times like these, the very name of G.
       Speaks volumes," wrote the Honorable J.
     "Inclosed please find appointment."  Presently
       Came a reception to which Harvard lent
     Fourteen professors, and, to give esprit,
       The Liberal Club some eighteen ladies sent,
       Five that spoke Greek, and thirteen sentiment.

     Four poets came who loved each other's song,
       And two philosophers, who thought that they
     Were in most things impractical and wrong;
       And two reformers, each in his own way
     Peculiar,one who had waxed strong
       On herbs and water, and such simple fare;
     Two foreign lions, "Ram See" and "Chy Long,"
       And several artists claimed attention there,
       Based on the fact they had been snubbed elsewhere.

     With this indorsement nothing now remained
       But counsel, Godspeed, and some calm adieux;
     No foolish tear the father's eyelash stained,
       And Winthrop's cheek as guiltless shone of dew.
     A slight publicity, such as obtained
       In classic Rome, these few last hours attended.
     The day arrived, the train and depot gained,
       The mayor's own presence this last act commended
       The train moved off and here the first act ended.

     Where West Point crouches, and with lifted shield
       Turns the whole river eastward through the pass;
     Whose jutting crags, half silver, stand revealed
       Like bossy bucklers of Leonidas;
     Where buttressed low against the storms that wield
       Their summer lightnings where her eaglets swarm,
     By Freedom's cradle Nature's self has steeled
       Her heart, like Winkelried, and to that storm
       Of leveled lances bares her bosom warm.

     But not to-night.  The air and woods are still,
       The faintest rustle in the trees below,
     The lowest tremor from the mountain rill,
       Come to the ear as but the trailing flow
     Of spirit robes that walk unseen the hill;
       The moon low sailing o'er the upland farm,
     The moon low sailing where the waters fill
       The lozenge lake, beside the banks of balm,
       Gleams like a chevron on the river's arm.

     All space breathes languor: from the hilltop high,
       Where Putnam's bastion crumbles in the past,
     To swooning depths where drowsy cannon lie
       And wide-mouthed mortars gape in slumbers vast;
     Stroke upon stroke, the far oars glance and die
       On the hushed bosom of the sleeping stream;
     Bright for one moment drifts a white sail by,
       Bright for one moment shows a bayonet gleam
       Far on the level plain, then passes as a dream.

     Soft down the line of darkened battlements,
       Bright on each lattice of the barrack walls,
     Where the low arching sallyport indents,
       Seen through its gloom beyond, the moonbeam falls.
     All is repose save where the camping tents
       Mock the white gravestones farther on, where sound
     No morning guns for reveille, nor whence
       No drum-beat calls retreat, but still is ever found
       Waiting and present on each sentry's round.

     Within the camp they lie, the young, the brave,
       Half knight, half schoolboy, acolytes of fame,
     Pledged to one altar, and perchance one grave;
       Bred to fear nothing but reproach and blame,
     Ascetic dandies o'er whom vestals rave,
       Clean-limbed young Spartans, disciplined young elves,
     Taught to destroy, that they may live to save,
       Students embattled, soldiers at their shelves,
       Heroes whose conquests are at first themselves.

     Within the camp they lie, in dreams are freed
       From the grim discipline they learn to love;
     In dreams no more the sentry's challenge heed,
       In dreams afar beyond their pickets rove;
     One treads once more the piny paths that lead
       To his green mountain home, and pausing hears
     The cattle call; one treads the tangled weed
       Of slippery rocks beside Atlantic piers;
       One smiles in sleep, one wakens wet with tears.

     One scents the breath of jasmine flowers that twine
       The pillared porches of his Southern home;
     One hears the coo of pigeons in the pine
       Of Western woods where he was wont to roam;
     One sees the sunset fire the distant line
       Where the long prairie sweeps its levels down;
     One treads the snow-peaks; one by lamps that shine
       Down the broad highways of the sea-girt town;
       And two are missing,Cadets Grey and Brown!

     Much as I grieve to chronicle the fact,
       That selfsame truant known as "Cadet Grey"
     Was the young hero of our moral tract,
       Shorn of his twofold names on entrance-day.
     "Winthrop" and "Adams" dropped in that one act
       Of martial curtness, and the roll-call thinned
     Of his ancestors, he with youthful tact
       Indulgence claimed, since Winthrop no more sinned,
     Nor sainted Adams winced when he, plain Grey, was "skinned."

     He had known trials since we saw him last,
       By sheer good luck had just escaped rejection,
     Not for his learning, but that it was cast
       In a spare frame scarce fit for drill inspection;
     But when he ope'd his lips a stream so vast
       Of information flooded each professor,
     They quite forgot his eyeglass,something past
       All precedent,accepting the transgressor,
       Weak eyes and all of which he was possessor.

     E'en the first day he touched a blackboard's space
       So the tradition of his glory lingers
     Two wise professors fainted, each with face
       White as the chalk within his rapid fingers:
     All day he ciphered, at such frantic pace,
       His form was hid in chalk precipitation
     Of every problem, till they said his case
       Could meet from them no fair examination
       Till Congress made a new appropriation.

     Famous in molecules, he demonstrated
       From the mess hash to many a listening classful;
     Great as a botanist, he separated
       Three kinds of "Mentha" in one julep's glassful;
     High in astronomy, it has been stated
       He was the first at West Point to discover
     Mars' missing satellites, and calculated
       Their true positions, not the heavens over,
       But 'neath the window of Miss Kitty Rover.

     Indeed, I fear this novelty celestial
       That very night was visible and clear;
     At least two youths of aspect most terrestrial,
       And clad in uniform, were loitering near
     A villa's casement, where a gentle vestal
       Took their impatience somewhat patiently,
     Knowing the youths were somewhat green and "bestial"
       (A certain slang of the Academy,
       I beg the reader won't refer to me).

     For when they ceased their ardent strain, Miss Kitty
       Glowed not with anger nor a kindred flame,
     But rather flushed with an odd sort of pity,
       Half matron's kindness, and half coquette's shame;
     Proud yet quite blameful, when she heard their ditty
       She gave her soul poetical expression,
     And being clever too, as she was pretty,
       From her high casement warbled this confession,
       Half provocation and one half repression:

     Not yet, O friend, not yet! the patient stars
     Lean from their lattices, content to wait.
     All is illusion till the morning bars
     Slip from the levels of the Eastern gate.
     Night is too young, O friend! day is too near;
     Wait for the day that maketh all things clear.
           Not yet, O friend, not yet!

     Not yet, O love, not yet! all is not true,
     All is not ever as it seemeth now.
     Soon shall the river take another blue,
     Soon dies yon light upon the mountain brow.
     What lieth dark, O love, bright day will fill;
     Wait for thy morning, be it good or ill.
           Not yet, O love, not yet!

     The strain was finished; softly as the night
       Her voice died from the window, yet e'en then
     Fluttered and fell likewise a kerchief white;
       But that no doubt was accident, for when
     She sought her couch she deemed her conduct quite
       Beyond the reach of scandalous commenter,
     Washing her hands of either gallant wight,
       Knowing the moralist might compliment her,
       Thus voicing Siren with the words of Mentor.

     She little knew the youths below, who straight
       Dived for her kerchief, and quite overlooked
     The pregnant moral she would inculcate;
       Nor dreamed the less how little Winthrop brooked
     Her right to doubt his soul's maturer state.
       Brownwho was Western, amiable, and new
     Might take the moral and accept his fate;
       The which he did, but, being stronger too,
       Took the white kerchief, also, as his due.

     They did not quarrel, which no doubt seemed queer
       To those who knew not how their friendship blended;
     Each was opposed, and each the other's peer,
       Yet each the other in some things transcended.
     Where Brown lacked culture, brains,and oft, I fear,
       Cash in his pocket,Grey of course supplied him;
     Where Grey lacked frankness, force, and faith sincere,
       Brown of his manhood suffered none to chide him,
       But in his faults stood manfully beside him.

     In academic walks and studies grave,
       In the camp drill and martial occupation,
     They helped each other: but just here I crave
       Space for the reader's full imagination,
     The fact is patent, Grey became a slave!
       A tool, a fag, a "pleb"!  To state it plainer,
     All that blue blood and ancestry e'er gave
       Cleaned guns, brought water!was, in fact, retainer
       To Jones, whose uncle was a paper-stainer!

     How they bore this at home I cannot say:
       I only know so runs the gossip's tale.
     It chanced one day that the paternal Grey
       Came to West Point that he himself might hail
     The future hero in some proper way
       Consistent with his lineage.  With him came
     A judge, a poet, and a brave array
       Of aunts and uncles, bearing each a name,
       Eyeglass and respirator with the same.

     "Observe!" quoth Grey the elder to his friends,
       "Not in these giddy youths at baseball playing
     You'll notice Winthrop Adams!  Greater ends
       Than these absorb HIS leisure.  No doubt straying
     With Caesar's Commentaries, he attends
       Some Roman council.  Let us ask, however,
     Yon grimy urchin, who my soul offends
       By wheeling offal, if he will endeavor
       To find  What! heaven!  Winthrop!  Oh! no! never!"

     Alas! too true!  The last of all the Greys
       Was "doing police detail,"it had come
     To this; in vain the rare historic bays
       That crowned the pictured Puritans at home!
     And yet 'twas certain that in grosser ways
       Of health and physique he was quite improving.
     Straighter he stood, and had achieved some praise
       In other exercise, much more behooving
       A soldier's taste than merely dirt removing.

     But to resume: we left the youthful pair,
       Some stanzas back, before a lady's bower;
     'Tis to be hoped they were no longer there,
       For stars were pointing to the morning hour.
     Their escapade discovered, ill 'twould fare
       With our two heroes, derelict of orders;
     But, like the ghost, they "scent the morning air,"
       And back again they steal across the borders,
       Unseen, unheeded, by their martial warders.

     They got to bed with speed: young Grey to dream
       Of some vague future with a general's star,
     And Mistress Kitty basking in its gleam;
       While Brown, content to worship her afar,
     Dreamed himself dying by some lonely stream,
       Having snatched Kitty from eighteen Nez Perces,
     Till a far bugle, with the morning beam,
       In his dull ear its fateful song rehearses,
       Which Winthrop Adams after put to verses.

     So passed three years of their novitiate,
       The first real boyhood Grey had ever known.
     His youth ran clear,not choked like his Cochituate,
       In civic pipes, but free and pure alone;
     Yet knew repression, could himself habituate
       To having mind and body well rubbed down,
     Could read himself in others, and could situate
       Themselves in him,except, I grieve to own,
       He couldn't see what Kitty saw in Brown!

     At last came graduation; Brown received
       In the One Hundredth Cavalry commission;
     Then frolic, flirting, parting,when none grieved
       Save Brown, who loved our young Academician.
     And Grey, who felt his friend was still deceived
       By Mistress Kitty, who with other beauties
     Graced the occasion, and it was believed
       Had promised Brown that when he could recruit his
       Promised command, she'd share with him those duties.

     Howe'er this was I know not; all I know,
       The night was June's, the moon rode high and clear;
     "'Twas such a night as this," three years ago,
       Miss Kitty sang the song that two might hear.
     There is a walk where trees o'erarching grow,
       Too wide for one, not wide enough for three
     (A fact precluding any plural beau),
       Which quite explained Miss Kitty's company,
       But not why Grey that favored one should be.

     There is a spring, whose limpid waters hide
       Somewhere within the shadows of that path
     Called Kosciusko's.  There two figures bide,
       Grey and Miss Kitty.  Surely Nature hath
     No fairer mirror for a might-be bride
       Than this same pool that caught our gentle belle
     To its dark heart one moment.  At her side
       Grey bent.  A something trembled o'er the well,
       Bright, sphericala tear?  Ah no! a button fell!

     "Material minds might think that gravitation,"
       Quoth Grey, "drew yon metallic spheroid down.
     The soul poetic views the situation
       Fraught with more meaning.  When thy girlish crown
     Was mirrored there, there was disintegration
       Of me, and all my spirit moved to you,
     Taking the form of slow precipitation!"
       But here came "Taps," a start, a smile, adieu!
       A blush, a sigh, and end of Canto II.

     Fades the light,
       And afar
     Goeth day, cometh night;
       And a star
           Leadeth all,
           Speedeth all
                  To their rest!

     Love, good-night!
       Must thou go
       When the day
     And the light
           Need thee so,
     Needeth all,
     Heedeth all,
           That is best?

     Where the sun sinks through leagues of arid sky,
       Where the sun dies o'er leagues of arid plain,
     Where the dead bones of wasted rivers lie,
       Trailed from their channels in yon mountain chain;
     Where day by day naught takes the wearied eye
       But the low-rimming mountains, sharply based
     On the dead levels, moving far or nigh,
       As the sick vision wanders o'er the waste,
       But ever day by day against the sunset traced:

     There moving through a poisonous cloud that stings
       With dust of alkali the trampling band
     Of Indian ponies, ride on dusky wings
       The red marauders of the Western land;
     Heavy with spoil, they seek the trail that brings
       Their flaunting lances to that sheltered bank
     Where lie their lodges; and the river sings
       Forgetful of the plain beyond, that drank
       Its life blood, where the wasted caravan sank.

     They brought with them the thief's ignoble spoil,
       The beggar's dole, the greed of chiffonnier,
     The scum of camps, the implements of toil
       Snatched from dead hands, to rust as useless here;
     All they could rake or glean from hut or soil
       Piled their lean ponies, with the jackdaw's greed
     For vacant glitter.  It were scarce a foil
       To all this tinsel that one feathered reed
       Bore on its barb two scalps that freshly bleed!

     They brought with them, alas! a wounded foe,
       Bound hand and foot, yet nursed with cruel care,
     Lest that in death he might escape one throe
       They had decreed his living flesh should bear:
     A youthful officer, by one foul blow
       Of treachery surprised, yet fighting still
     Amid his ambushed train, calm as the snow
       Above him; hopeless, yet content to spill
       His blood with theirs, and fighting but to kill.

     He had fought nobly, and in that brief spell
       Had won the awe of those rude border men
     Who gathered round him, and beside him fell
       In loyal faith and silence, save that when
     By smoke embarrassed, and near sight as well,
       He paused to wipe his eyeglass, and decide
     Its nearer focus, there arose a yell
       Of approbation, and Bob Barker cried,
       "Wade in, Dundreary!" tossed his cap anddied.

     Their sole survivor now! his captors bear
       Him all unconscious, and beside the stream
     Leave him to rest; meantime the squaws prepare
       The stake for sacrifice: nor wakes a gleam
     Of pity in those Furies' eyes that glare
       Expectant of the torture; yet alway
     His steadfast spirit shines and mocks them there
       With peace they know not, till at close of day
       On his dull ear there thrills a whispered "Grey!"

     He starts!  Was it a trick?  Had angels kind
       Touched with compassion some weak woman's breast?
     Such things he'd read of!  Faintly to his mind
       Came Pocahontas pleading for her guest.
     But then, this voice, though soft, was still inclined
       To baritone!  A squaw in ragged gown
     Stood near him, frowning hatred.  Was he blind?
       Whose eye was this beneath that beetling frown?
       The frown was painted, but that wink meantBrown!

     "Hush! for your life and mine! the thongs are cut,"
       He whispers; "in yon thicket stands my horse.
     One dash!I follow close, as if to glut
       My own revenge, yet bar the others' course.
     Now!"  And 'tis done.  Grey speeds, Brown follows; but
       Ere yet they reach the shade, Grey, fainting, reels,
     Yet not before Brown's circling arms close shut
       His in, uplifting him!  Anon he feels
       A horse beneath him bound, and hears the rattling heels.

     Then rose a yell of baffled hate, and sprang
       Headlong the savages in swift pursuit;
     Though speed the fugitives, they hope to hang
       Hot on their heels, like wolves, with tireless foot.
     Long is the chase; Brown hears with inward pang
       The short, hard panting of his gallant steed
     Beneath its double burden; vainly rang
       Both voice and spur.  The heaving flanks may bleed,
       Yet comes the sequel that they still must heed!

     Brown saw itreined his steed; dismounting, stood
       Calm and inflexible.  "Old chap! you see
     There is but ONE escape.  You know it?  Good!
       There is ONE man to take it.  You are he.
     The horse won't carry double.  If he could,
       'Twould but protract this bother.  I shall stay:
     I've business with these devils, they with me;
       I will occupy them till you get away.
       Hush! quick time, forward.  There! God bless you, Grey!"

     But as he finished, Grey slipped to his feet,
       Calm as his ancestors in voice and eye:
     "You do forget yourself when you compete
       With him whose RIGHT it is to stay and die:
     That's not YOUR duty.  Please regain your seat;
       And take my ORDERSsince I rank you here!
     Mount and rejoin your men, and my defeat
       Report at quarters.  Take this letter; ne'er
       Give it to aught but HER, nor let aught interfere."

     And, shamed and blushing, Brown the letter took
       Obediently and placed it in his pocket;
     Then, drawing forth another, said, "I look
       For death as you do, wherefore take this locket
     And letter."  Here his comrade's hand he shook
       In silence.  "Should we both together fall,
     Some other man"but here all speech forsook
       His lips, as ringing cheerily o'er all
       He heard afar his own dear bugle-call!

     'Twas his command and succor, but e'en then
       Grey fainted, with poor Brown, who had forgot
     He likewise had been wounded, and both men
       Were picked up quite unconscious of their lot.
     Long lay they in extremity, and when
       They both grew stronger, and once more exchanged
     Old vows and memories, one common "den"
       In hospital was theirs, and free they ranged,
       Awaiting orders, but no more estranged.

     And yet 'twas strangenor can I end my tale
       Without this moral, to be fair and just:
     They never sought to know why each did fail
       The prompt fulfillment of the other's trust.
     It was suggested they could not avail
       Themselves of either letter, since they were
     Duly dispatched to their address by mail
       By Captain X., who knew Miss Rover fair
       Now meant stout Mistress Bloggs of Blank Blank Square.

     This is the tale that the Chronicle
     Tells of the wonderful miracle
     Wrought by the pious Padre Serro,
     The very reverend Junipero.

     The heathen stood on his ancient mound,
     Looking over the desert bound
     Into the distant, hazy South,
     Over the dusty and broad champaign,
     Where, with many a gaping mouth
     And fissure, cracked by the fervid drouth,
     For seven months had the wasted plain
     Known no moisture of dew or rain.
     The wells were empty and choked with sand;
     The rivers had perished from the land;
     Only the sea-fogs to and fro
     Slipped like ghosts of the streams below.
     Deep in its bed lay the river's bones,
     Bleaching in pebbles and milk-white stones,
     And tracked o'er the desert faint and far,
     Its ribs shone bright on each sandy bar.

     Thus they stood as the sun went down
     Over the foot-hills bare and brown;
     Thus they looked to the South, wherefrom
     The pale-face medicine-man should come,
     Not in anger or in strife,
     But to bringso ran the tale
     The welcome springs of eternal life,
     The living waters that should not fail.

     Said one, "He will come like Manitou,
     Unseen, unheard, in the falling dew."
     Said another, "He will come full soon
     Out of the round-faced watery moon."
     And another said, "He is here!" and lo,
     Faltering, staggering, feeble and slow,
     Out from the desert's blinding heat
     The Padre dropped at the heathen's feet.

     They stood and gazed for a little space
     Down on his pallid and careworn face,
     And a smile of scorn went round the band
     As they touched alternate with foot and hand
     This mortal waif, that the outer space
     Of dim mysterious sky and sand
     Flung with so little of Christian grace
     Down on their barren, sterile strand.

     Said one to him: "It seems thy God
     Is a very pitiful kind of God:
     He could not shield thine aching eyes
     From the blowing desert sands that rise,
     Nor turn aside from thy old gray head
     The glittering blade that is brandished
     By the sun He set in the heavens high;
     He could not moisten thy lips when dry;
     The desert fire is in thy brain;
     Thy limbs are racked with the fever-pain.
     If this be the grace He showeth thee
     Who art His servant, what may we,
     Strange to His ways and His commands,
     Seek at His unforgiving hands?"

     "Drink but this cup," said the Padre, straight,
     "And thou shalt know whose mercy bore
     These aching limbs to your heathen door,
     And purged my soul of its gross estate.
     Drink in His name, and thou shalt see
     The hidden depths of this mystery.
     Drink!" and he held the cup.  One blow
     From the heathen dashed to the ground below
     The sacred cup that the Padre bore,
     And the thirsty soil drank the precious store
     Of sacramental and holy wine,
     That emblem and consecrated sign
     And blessed symbol of blood divine.

     Then, says the legend (and they who doubt
     The same as heretics be accurst),
     From the dry and feverish soil leaped out
     A living fountain; a well-spring burst
     Over the dusty and broad champaign,
     Over the sandy and sterile plain,
     Till the granite ribs and the milk-white stones
     That lay in the valleythe scattered bones
     Moved in the river and lived again!

     Such was the wonderful miracle
     Wrought by the cup of wine that fell
     From the hands of the pious Padre Serro,
     The very reverend Junipero.

     Of all the fountains that poets sing,
     Crystal, thermal, or mineral spring,
     Ponce de Leon's Fount of Youth,
     Wells with bottoms of doubtful truth,
     In short, of all the springs of Time
     That ever were flowing in fact or rhyme,
     That ever were tasted, felt, or seen,
     There were none like the Spring of San Joaquin.

     Anno Domini eighteen-seven,
     Father Dominguez (now in heaven,
     Obiit eighteen twenty-seven)
     Found the spring, and found it, too,
     By his mule's miraculous cast of a shoe;
     For his beasta descendant of Balaam's ass
     Stopped on the instant, and would not pass.

     The Padre thought the omen good,
     And bent his lips to the trickling flood;
     Thenas the Chronicles declare,
     On the honest faith of a true believer
     His cheeks, though wasted, lank, and bare,
     Filled like a withered russet pear
     In the vacuum of a glass receiver,
     And the snows that seventy winters bring
     Melted away in that magic spring.

     Such, at least, was the wondrous news
     The Padre brought into Santa Cruz.
     The Church, of course, had its own views
     Of who were worthiest to use
     The magic spring; but the prior claim
     Fell to the aged, sick, and lame.
     Far and wide the people came:
     Some from the healthful Aptos Creek
     Hastened to bring their helpless sick;
     Even the fishers of rude Soquel
     Suddenly found they were far from well;
     The brawny dwellers of San Lorenzo
     Said, in fact, they had never been so;
     And all were ailing,strange to say,
     From Pescadero to Monterey.

     Over the mountain they poured in,
     With leathern bottles and bags of skin;
     Through the canyons a motley throng
     Trotted, hobbled, and limped along.
     The Fathers gazed at the moving scene
     With pious joy and with souls serene;
     And thena result perhaps foreseen
     They laid out the Mission of San Joaquin.

     Not in the eyes of faith alone
     The good effects of the water shone;
     But skins grew rosy, eyes waxed clear,
     Of rough vaquero and muleteer;
     Angular forms were rounded out,
     Limbs grew supple and waists grew stout;
     And as for the girls,for miles about
     They had no equal!  To this day,
     From Pescadero to Monterey,
     You'll still find eyes in which are seen
     The liquid graces of San Joaquin.

     There is a limit to human bliss,
     And the Mission of San Joaquin had this;
     None went abroad to roam or stay
     But they fell sick in the queerest way,
     A singular maladie du pays,
     With gastric symptoms: so they spent
     Their days in a sensuous content,
     Caring little for things unseen
     Beyond their bowers of living green,
     Beyond the mountains that lay between
     The world and the Mission of San Joaquin.

     Winter passed, and the summer came
     The trunks of madrono, all aflame,
     Here and there through the underwood
     Like pillars of fire starkly stood.
     All of the breezy solitude
       Was filled with the spicing of pine and bay
     And resinous odors mixed and blended;
       And dim and ghostlike, far away,
     The smoke of the burning woods ascended.
     Then of a sudden the mountains swam,
     The rivers piled their floods in a dam,
     The ridge above Los Gatos Creek
       Arched its spine in a feline fashion;
     The forests waltzed till they grew sick,
       And Nature shook in a speechless passion;
     And, swallowed up in the earthquake's spleen,
     The wonderful Spring of San Joaquin
     Vanished, and never more was seen!

     Two days passed: the Mission folk
     Out of their rosy dream awoke;
     Some of them looked a trifle white,
     But that, no doubt, was from earthquake fright.
     Three days: there was sore distress,
     Headache, nausea, giddiness.
     Four days: faintings, tenderness
     Of the mouth and fauces; and in less
     Than one weekhere the story closes;
     We won't continue the prognosis
     Enough that now no trace is seen
     Of Spring or Mission of San Joaquin.

     You see the point?  Don't be too quick
     To break bad habits: better stick,
     Like the Mission folk, to your ARSENIC.