THE MIRACLE OF PADRE JUNIPERO

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 bring — so 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 valley — the 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.