Complete Poetical Works. Bret Harte

Чтение книги онлайн.

           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.