Complete Poetical Works. Bret Harte

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           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 then—a 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 week—here the story closes;

           We won't continue the prognosis—

           Enough that now no trace is seen

           Of Spring or Mission of San Joaquin.