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 rivers bones,     Bleaching in pebbles and milk-white stones,     And tracked oer 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 deserts blinding heat     The Padre dropped at the heathens 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 brandishd     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.