         Drunk and senseless in his place,
         Prone and sprawling on his face,
     More like brute than any man
                Alive or dead,
         By his great pump out of gear,
         Lay the peon engineer,
         Waking only just to hear,
                Overhead,
         Angry tones that called his name,
         Oaths and cries of bitter blame,—
     Woke to hear all this, and, waking, turned and fled!

         "To the man who'll bring to me,"
         Cried Intendant Harry Lee,—
     Harry Lee, the English foreman of the mine,—
         "Bring the sot alive or dead,
         I will give to him," he said,
         "Fifteen hundred pesos down,
         Just to set the rascal's crown
     Underneath this heel of mine:
                Since but death
         Deserves the man whose deed,
         Be it vice or want of heed,
         Stops the pumps that give us breath,—
         Stops the pumps that suck the death
     From the poisoned lower levels of the mine!"

         No one answered; for a cry
         From the shaft rose up on high,
     And shuffling, scrambling, tumbling from below,
         Came the miners each, the bolder
         Mounting on the weaker's shoulder,
         Grappling, clinging to their hold or
                Letting go,
         As the weaker gasped and fell
         From the ladder to the well,—
         To the poisoned pit of hell
                Down below!

         "To the man who sets them free,"
         Cried the foreman, Harry Lee,—
     Harry Lee, the English foreman of the mine,—
         "Brings them out and sets them free,
         I will give that man," said he,
         "Twice that sum, who with a rope
         Face to face with Death shall cope.
         Let him come who dares to hope!"
         "Hold your peace!" some one replied,
         Standing by the foreman's side;
     "There has one already gone, whoe'er he be!"

         Then they held their breath with awe,
         Pulling on the rope, and saw
         Fainting figures reappear,
         On the black rope swinging clear,
     Fastened by some skillful hand from below;
         Till a score the level gained,
         And but one alone remained,—
         He the hero and the last,
         He whose skillful hand made fast
     The long line that brought them back to hope and cheer!

         Haggard, gasping, down dropped he
         At the feet of Harry Lee,—
     Harry Lee, the English foreman of the mine.
         "I have come," he gasped, "to claim
         Both rewards. Senor, my name
                Is Ramon!
         I'm the drunken engineer,
         I'm the coward, Senor"– Here
         He fell over, by that sign,
                Dead as stone!

DON DIEGO OF THE SOUTH

(REFECTORY, MISSION SAN GABRIEL, 1869)

     Good!—said the Padre,—believe me still,
     "Don Giovanni," or what you will,
     The type's eternal! We knew him here
     As Don Diego del Sud. I fear
     The story's no new one! Will you hear?

     One of those spirits you can't tell why
     God has permitted. Therein I
     Have the advantage, for I hold
     That wolves are sent to the purest fold,
     And we'd save the wolf if we'd get the lamb.
     You're no believer? Good! I am.

     Well, for some purpose, I grant you dim,
     The Don loved women, and they loved him.
     Each thought herself his LAST love! Worst,
     Many believed that they were his FIRST!
     And, such are these creatures since the Fall,
     The very doubt had a charm for all!

     You laugh! You are young, but I—indeed
     I have no patience… To proceed:—
     You saw, as you passed through the upper town,
     The Eucinal where the road goes down
     To San Felipe! There one morn
     They found Diego,—his mantle torn,
     And as many holes through his doublet's band
     As there were wronged husbands—you understand!

     "Dying," so said the gossips. "Dead"
     Was what the friars who found him said.
     May be. Quien sabe? Who else should know?
     It was a hundred years ago.
     There was a funeral. Small indeed—
     Private. What would you? To proceed:—

     Scarcely the year had flown. One night
     The Commandante awoke in fright,
     Hearing below his casement's bar
     The well-known twang of the Don's guitar;
     And rushed to the window, just to see
     His wife a-swoon on the balcony.

     One week later, Don Juan Ramirez
     Found his own daughter, the Dona Inez,
     Pale as a ghost, leaning out to hear
     The song of that phantom cavalier.
     Even Alcalde Pedro Blas
     Saw, it was said, through his niece's glass,
     The shade of Diego twice repass.

     What these gentlemen each confessed
     Heaven and the Church only knows. At best
     The case was a bad one. How to deal
     With Sin as a Ghost, they couldn't but feel
     Was an awful thing. Till a certain Fray
     Humbly offered to show the way.

     And the way was this. Did I say before
     That the Fray was a stranger? No, Senor?
     Strange! very strange! I should have said
     That the very week that the Don lay dead
     He came among us. Bread he broke
     Silent, nor ever to one he spoke.
     So he had vowed it! Below his brows
     His face was hidden. There are such vows!

     Strange! are they not? You do not use
     Snuff? A bad habit!

                           Well, the views
     Of the Fray were these: that the penance done
     By the caballeros was right; but one
     Was due from the CAUSE, and that, in brief,
     Was Dona Dolores Gomez, chief,
     And Inez, Sanchicha, Concepcion,
     And Carmen,—well, half the girls in town
     On his tablets the Friar had written down.

     These were to come on a certain day
     And ask at the hands of the pious Fray
     For absolution. That done, small fear
     But the shade of Diego would disappear.

     They came; each knelt in her turn and place
     To the pious Fray with his hidden face
     And voiceless lips, and each again
     Took back her soul freed from spot or stain,
     Till the Dona Inez, with eyes downcast

     And a tear on their fringes, knelt her last.
     And then—perhaps that her voice was low
     From fear or from shame—the monks said so—
     But the Fray leaned forward, when, presto! all
     Were thrilled by a scream, and saw her fall
     Fainting beside the confessional.

     And so was the ghost of Diego laid
     As the Fray had said. Never more his shade
     Was seen at San Gabriel's Mission. Eh!
     The girl interests you? I dare say!
     "Nothing," said she, when they brought her to—
     "Only a faintness!" They spoke more true
     Who said 'twas a stubborn soul. But then—
     Women are women, and men are men!

     So, to return. As I said before,
     Having got the wolf, by the same high law
     We saved the lamb in the wolf's own jaw,
     And that's my moral. The tale, I fear,
     But poorly told. Yet it strikes me here
     Is stuff for a moral. What's your view?
     You smile, Don Pancho. Ah! that's like you!

AT THE HACIENDA

     Know I not whom thou mayst be
       Carved upon this olive-tree,—
         "Manuela of La Torre,"—
     For around on broken walls
     Summer sun and spring rain falls,
     And in vain the low wind calls
         "Manuela of La Torre."

     Of that song no words remain
       But the musical refrain,—
         "Manuela of La Torre."
     Yet at night, when winds are still,
     Tinkles on the distant hill
     A guitar, and words that thrill
       Tell to me the old, old story,—
     Old when first thy charms were sung,
     Old when these old walls were young,
         "Manuela of La Torre."

FRIAR PEDRO'S RIDE

     It was the morning season of the year;
       It was the morning era of the land;
     The watercourses rang full loud and clear;
       Portala's cross stood where Portala's hand
     Had planted it when Faith was taught by Fear,
       When monks and missions held the sole command
     Of all that shore beside the peaceful sea,
     Where spring-tides beat their long-drawn reveille.

     Out of the mission of San Luis Rey,
       All in that brisk, tumultuous spring weather,
     Rode Friar Pedro, in a pious way,
       With six dragoons in cuirasses of leather,
     Each armed alike for either prayer or fray;
       Handcuffs and missals they had slung together,
     And as an aid the gospel truth to scatter
     Each swung a lasso—alias a "riata."

     In sooth, that year the harvest had been slack,
       The crop of converts scarce worth computation;
     Some souls were lost, whose owners had turned back
       To save their bodies frequent flagellation;
     And some preferred the songs of birds, alack!
       To Latin matins and their souls' salvation,
     And thought their own wild whoopings were less dreary
     Than Father Pedro's droning miserere.

     To bring them back to matins and to prime,
       To pious works and secular submission,
     To prove to them that liberty was crime,—
       This was, in fact, the Padre's present mission;
     To get new souls perchance at the same time,
       And bring them to a "sense of their condition,"—
     That easy phrase, which, in the past and present,
     Means making that condition most unpleasant.

     He saw the glebe land guiltless of a furrow;
       He saw the wild oats wrestle on the hill;
     He saw the gopher working in his burrow;
       He saw the squirrel scampering at his will:—
     He saw all this, and felt no doubt a thorough
       And deep conviction of God's goodness; still
     He failed to see that in His glory He
     Yet left the humblest of His creatures free.

     He saw the flapping crow, whose frequent note
       Voiced the monotony of land and sky,
     Mocking with graceless wing and rusty coat
       His priestly presence as he trotted by.
     He would have cursed the bird by bell and rote,
       But other game just then was in his eye,—
     A savage camp, whose occupants preferred
     Their heathen darkness to the living Word.

     He rang his bell, and at the martial sound
       Twelve silver spurs their jingling rowels clashed;
     Six horses sprang across the level ground
       As six dragoons in open order dashed;
     Above their heads the lassos circled round,
       In every eye a pious fervor flashed;
     They charged the camp, and in one moment more
     They lassoed six and reconverted four.

     The Friar saw the conflict from a knoll,
       And sang Laus Deo and cheered on his men:
     "Well thrown, Bautista,—that's another soul;
       After him, Gomez,—try it once again;
     This way, Felipe,—there the heathen stole;
       Bones of St. Francis!—surely that makes TEN;
     Te Deum laudamus—but they're very wild;
     Non nobis Domine—all right, my child!"

     When at that moment—as the story goes—
       A certain squaw, who had her foes eluded,
     Ran past the Friar, just before his nose.
       He stared a moment, and in silence brooded;
     Then in his breast a pious frenzy rose
       And every other prudent thought excluded;
     He caught a lasso, and dashed in a canter
     After that Occidental Atalanta.

     High o'er his head he swirled the dreadful noose;
       But, as the practice was quite unfamiliar,
     His first cast tore Felipe's captive loose,
       And almost choked Tiburcio Camilla,
     And might have interfered with that brave youth's
       Ability to gorge the tough tortilla;
     But all things come by practice, and at last
     His flying slip-knot caught the maiden fast.

     Then rose above the plain a mingled yell
       Of rage and triumph,—a demoniac whoop:
     The Padre heard it like a passing knell,
       And would have loosened his unchristian loop;
     But the tough raw-hide held the captive well,
       And held, alas! too well the captor-dupe;
     For with one bound the savage fled amain,
     Dragging horse, Friar, down the lonely plain.

     Down the arroyo, out across the mead,
       By heath and hollow, sped the flying maid,
     Dragging behind her still the panting steed
       And helpless Friar, who in vain essayed
     To cut the lasso or to check his speed.
       He felt himself beyond all human aid,
     And trusted to the saints,—and, for that matter,
     To some weak spot in Felipe's riata.

     Alas! the lasso had been duly blessed,
       And, like baptism, held the flying wretch,—
     A doctrine that the priest had oft expressed,
       Which, like the lasso, might be made to stretch,
     But would not break; so neither could divest
       Themselves of it, but, like some awful fetch,
     The holy Friar had to recognize
     The image of his fate in heathen guise.

     He saw the glebe land guiltless of a furrow;
       He saw the wild oats wrestle on the hill;
     He saw the gopher standing in his burrow;
       He saw the squirrel scampering at his will:—
     He saw all this, and felt no doubt how thorough
       The contrast was to his condition; still
     The squaw kept onward to the sea, till night
     And the cold sea-fog hid them both from sight.

     The morning came above the serried coast,
       Lighting the snow-peaks with its beacon-fires,
     Driving before it all the fleet-winged host
       Of chattering birds above the Mission spires,
     Filling the land with light and joy, but most
       The savage woods with all their leafy lyres;
     In pearly tints and opal flame and fire
     The morning came, but not the holy Friar.

     Weeks passed away. In vain the Fathers sought
       Some trace or token that might tell his story;
     Some thought him dead, or, like Elijah, caught
       Up to the heavens in a blaze of glory.
     In this surmise some miracles were wrought
       On his account, and souls in purgatory
     Were thought to profit from his intercession;
     In brief, his absence made a "deep impression."

     A twelvemonth passed; the welcome Spring once more
       Made green the hills beside the white-faced Mission,
     Spread her bright dais by the western shore,
       And sat enthroned, a most resplendent vision.
     The heathen converts thronged the chapel door
       At morning mass, when, says the old tradition,
     A frightful whoop throughout the church resounded,
     And to their feet the congregation bounded.

     A tramp of hoofs upon the beaten course,
       Then came a sight that made the bravest quail:
     A phantom Friar on a spectre horse,
       Dragged by a creature decked with horns and tail.
     By the lone Mission, with the whirlwind's force,
       They madly swept, and left a sulphurous trail:
     And that was all,—enough to tell the story,
     And leave unblessed those souls in purgatory.

     And ever after, on that fatal day
       That Friar Pedro rode abroad lassoing,
     A ghostly couple came and went away
       With savage whoop and heathenish hallooing,
     Which brought discredit on San Luis Rey,
       And proved the Mission's ruin and undoing;
     For ere ten years had passed, the squaw and Friar
     Performed to empty walls and fallen spire.

     The Mission is no more; upon its wall.
       The golden lizards slip, or breathless pause,
     Still as the sunshine brokenly that falls
       Through crannied roof and spider-webs of gauze;
     No more the bell its solemn warning calls,—
       A holier silence thrills and overawes;
     And the sharp lights and shadows of to-day
     Outline the Mission of San Luis Rey.

IN THE MISSION GARDEN

(1865)

FATHER FELIPE

     I speak not the English well, but Pachita,
     She speak for me; is it not so, my Pancha?
     Eh, little rogue? Come, salute me the stranger
          Americano.
     Sir, in my country we say, "Where the heart is,
     There live the speech." Ah! you not understand? So!
     Pardon an old man,—what you call "old fogy,"—
          Padre Felipe!
     Old, Senor, old! just so old as the Mission.
     You see that pear-tree? How old you think, Senor?
     Fifteen year? Twenty? Ah, Senor, just fifty
          Gone since I plant him!
     You like the wine? It is some at the Mission,
     Made from the grape of the year eighteen hundred;
     All the same time when the earthquake he come to
          San Juan Bautista.
     But Pancha is twelve, and she is the rose-tree;
     And I am the olive, and this is the garden:
     And "Pancha" we say, but her name is "Francisca,"
          Same like her mother.
     Eh, you knew HER? No? Ah! it is a story;
     But I speak not, like Pachita, the English:
     So! if I try, you will sit here beside me,
          And shall not laugh, eh?
     When the American come to the Mission,
     Many arrive at the house of Francisca:
     One,—he was fine man,—he buy the cattle
          Of Jose Castro.
     So! he came much, and Francisca, she saw him:
     And it was love,—and a very dry season;
     And the pears bake on the tree,—and the rain come,
          But not Francisca.
     Not for one year; and one night I have walk much
     Under the olive-tree, when comes Francisca,—
     Comes to me here, with her child, this Francisca,—
          Under the olive-tree.
     Sir, it was sad;… but I speak not the English;
     So!… she stay here, and she wait for her husband:
     He come no more, and she sleep on the hillside;
          There stands Pachita.
     Ah! there's the Angelus. Will you not enter?
     Or shall you walk in the garden with Pancha?
     Go, little rogue—st! attend to the stranger!
          Adios, Senor.

PACHITA (briskly)

     So, he's been telling that yarn about mother!
     Bless you! he tells it to every stranger:
     Folks about yer say the old man's my father;
          What's your opinion?

THE LOST GALLEON*

     In sixteen hundred and forty-one,
     The regular yearly galleon,
     Laden with odorous gums and spice,
     India cottons and India rice,
     And the richest silks of far Cathay,
     Was due at Acapulco Bay.

     Due she was, and overdue,—
     Galleon, merchandise and crew,
     Creeping along through rain and shine,
     Through the tropics, under the line.
     The trains were waiting outside the walls,
     The wives of sailors thronged the town,
     The traders sat by their empty stalls,
     And the Viceroy himself came down;
     The bells in the tower were all a-trip,
     Te Deums were on each Father's lip,
     The limes were ripening in the sun
     For the sick of the coming galleon.

     All in vain. Weeks passed away,
     And yet no galleon saw the bay.
     India goods advanced in price;
     The Governor missed his favorite spice;
     The Senoritas mourned for sandal
     And the famous cottons of Coromandel;
     And some for an absent lover lost,
     And one for a husband,—Dona Julia,
     Wife of the captain tempest-tossed,
     In circumstances so peculiar;
     Even the Fathers, unawares,
     Grumbled a little at their prayers;
     And all along the coast that year
     Votive candles wore scarce and dear.
     Never a tear bedims the eye
     That time and patience will not dry;

     Never a lip is curved with pain
     That can't be kissed into smiles again;
     And these same truths, as far as I know,
     Obtained on the coast of Mexico
     More than two hundred years ago,
     In sixteen hundred and fifty-one,—
     Ten years after the deed was done,—
     And folks had forgotten the galleon:
     The divers plunged in the gulf for pearls,
     White as the teeth of the Indian girls;
     The traders sat by their full bazaars;
     The mules with many a weary load,
     And oxen dragging their creaking cars,
     Came and went on the mountain road.

     Where was the galleon all this while?
     Wrecked on some lonely coral isle,
     Burnt by the roving sea-marauders,
     Or sailing north under secret orders?
     Had she found the Anian passage famed,
     By lying Maldonado claimed,
     And sailed through the sixty-fifth degree
     Direct to the North Atlantic Sea?
     Or had she found the "River of Kings,"
     Of which De Fonte told such strange things,
     In sixteen forty? Never a sign,
     East or west or under the line,
     They saw of the missing galleon;
     Never a sail or plank or chip
     They found of the long-lost treasure-ship,
     Or enough to build a tale upon.
     But when she was lost, and where and how,
     Are the facts we're coming to just now.

     Take, if you please, the chart of that day,
     Published at Madrid,—por el Rey;
     Look for a spot in the old South Sea,
     The hundred and eightieth degree
     Longitude west of Madrid: there,
     Under the equatorial glare,
     Just where the east and west are one,
     You'll find the missing galleon,—
     You'll find the San Gregorio, yet
     Riding the seas, with sails all set,
     Fresh as upon the very day
     She sailed from Acapulco Bay.

     How did she get there? What strange spell
     Kept her two hundred years so well,
     Free from decay and mortal taint?
     What but the prayers of a patron saint!

     A hundred leagues from Manilla town,
     The San Gregorio's helm came down;
     Round she went on her heel, and not
     A cable's length from a galliot
     That rocked on the waters just abreast
     Of the galleon's course, which was west-sou'-west.

     Then said the galleon's commandante,
     General Pedro Sobriente
     (That was his rank on land and main,
     A regular custom of Old Spain),
     "My pilot is dead of scurvy: may
     I ask the longitude, time, and day?"
     The first two given and compared;
     The third—the commandante stared!
     "The FIRST of June? I make it second."
     Said the stranger, "Then you've wrongly reckoned;
     I make it FIRST: as you came this way,
     You should have lost, d'ye see, a day;
     Lost a day, as plainly see,
     On the hundred and eightieth degree."
     "Lost a day?" "Yes; if not rude,
     When did you make east longitude?"
     "On the ninth of May,—our patron's day."
     "On the ninth?—YOU HAD NO NINTH OF MAY!
     Eighth and tenth was there; but stay"—
     Too late; for the galleon bore away.

     Lost was the day they should have kept,
     Lost unheeded and lost unwept;
     Lost in a way that made search vain,
     Lost in a trackless and boundless main;
     Lost like the day of Job's awful curse,
     In his third chapter, third and fourth verse;
     Wrecked was their patron's only day,—
     What would the holy Fathers say?

     Said the Fray Antonio Estavan,
     The galleon's chaplain,—a learned man,—
     "Nothing is lost that you can regain;
     And the way to look for a thing is plain,
     To go where you lost it, back again.
     Back with your galleon till you see
     The hundred and eightieth degree.
     Wait till the rolling year goes round,
     And there will the missing day be found;
     For you'll find, if computation's true,
     That sailing EAST will give to you
     Not only one ninth of May, but two,—
     One for the good saint's present cheer,
     And one for the day we lost last year."

     Back to the spot sailed the galleon;
     Where, for a twelvemonth, off and on
     The hundred and eightieth degree
     She rose and fell on a tropic sea.
     But lo! when it came to the ninth of May,
     All of a sudden becalmed she lay
     One degree from that fatal spot,
     Without the power to move a knot;
     And of course the moment she lost her way,
     Gone was her chance to save that day.

     To cut a lengthening story short,
     She never saved it. Made the sport
     Of evil spirits and baffling wind,
     She was always before or just behind,
     One day too soon or one day too late,
     And the sun, meanwhile, would never wait.
     She had two Eighths, as she idly lay,
     Two Tenths, but never a NINTH of May;
     And there she rides through two hundred years
     Of dreary penance and anxious fears;
     Yet, through the grace of the saint she served,
     Captain and crew are still preserved.

     By a computation that still holds good,
     Made by the Holy Brotherhood,
     The San Gregorio will cross that line
     In nineteen hundred and thirty-nine:
     Just three hundred years to a day
     From the time she lost the ninth of May.
     And the folk in Acapulco town,
     Over the waters looking down,
     Will see in the glow of the setting sun
     The sails of the missing galleon,
     And the royal standard of Philip Rey,
     The gleaming mast and glistening spar,
     As she nears the surf of the outer bar.
     A Te Deum sung on her crowded deck,
     An odor of spice along the shore,
     A crash, a cry from a shattered wreck,—
     And the yearly galleon sails no more
     In or out of the olden bay;
     For the blessed patron has found his day.

–

     Such is the legend. Hear this truth:
       Over the trackless past, somewhere,
     Lie the lost days of our tropic youth,
       Only regained by faith and prayer,
     Only recalled by prayer and plaint:
     Each lost day has its patron saint!