Bret Harte - Complete Poetical Works стр 14.

     Of all the fountains that poets sing,
     Crystal, thermal, or mineral spring,
     Ponce de Leon's Fount of Youth,
     Wells with bottoms of doubtful truth,
     In short, of all the springs of Time
     That ever were flowing in fact or rhyme,
     That ever were tasted, felt, or seen,
     There were none like the Spring of San Joaquin.

     Anno Domini eighteen-seven,
     Father Dominguez (now in heaven,
     Obiit eighteen twenty-seven)
     Found the spring, and found it, too,
     By his mule's miraculous cast of a shoe;
     For his beasta descendant of Balaam's ass
     Stopped on the instant, and would not pass.

     The Padre thought the omen good,
     And bent his lips to the trickling flood;
     Thenas the Chronicles declare,
     On the honest faith of a true believer
     His cheeks, though wasted, lank, and bare,
     Filled like a withered russet pear
     In the vacuum of a glass receiver,
     And the snows that seventy winters bring
     Melted away in that magic spring.

     Such, at least, was the wondrous news
     The Padre brought into Santa Cruz.
     The Church, of course, had its own views
     Of who were worthiest to use
     The magic spring; but the prior claim
     Fell to the aged, sick, and lame.
     Far and wide the people came:
     Some from the healthful Aptos Creek
     Hastened to bring their helpless sick;
     Even the fishers of rude Soquel
     Suddenly found they were far from well;
     The brawny dwellers of San Lorenzo
     Said, in fact, they had never been so;
     And all were ailing,strange to say,
     From Pescadero to Monterey.

     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 thena 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 weekhere the story closes;
     We won't continue the prognosis
     Enough that now no trace is seen
     Of Spring or Mission of San Joaquin.

     You see the point?  Don't be too quick
     To break bad habits: better stick,
     Like the Mission folk, to your ARSENIC.

     Bells of the Past, whose long-forgotten music
              Still fills the wide expanse,
     Tingeing the sober twilight of the Present
              With color of romance!

     I hear your call, and see the sun descending
              On rock and wave and sand,
     As down the coast the Mission voices, blending,
              Girdle the heathen land.

     Within the circle of your incantation
              No blight nor mildew falls;
     Nor fierce unrest, nor lust, nor low ambition
              Passes those airy walls.

     Borne on the swell of your long waves receding,
              I touch the farther Past;
     I see the dying glow of Spanish glory,
              The sunset dream and last!

     Before me rise the dome-shaped Mission towers,
              The white Presidio;
     The swart commander in his leathern jerkin,
              The priest in stole of snow.

     Once more I see Portala's cross uplifting
              Above the setting sun;
     And past the headland, northward, slowly drifting,
              The freighted galleon.

     O solemn bells! whose consecrated masses
              Recall the faith of old;
     O tinkling bells! that lulled with twilight music
              The spiritual fold!

     Your voices break and falter in the darkness,
              Break, falter, and are still;
     And veiled and mystic, like the Host descending,
              The sun sinks from the hill!

     Looking seaward, o'er the sand-hills stands the fortress, old and
        quaint,
     By the San Francisco friars lifted to their patron saint,
     Sponsor to that wondrous city, now apostate to the creed,
     On whose youthful walls the Padre saw the angel's golden reed;
     All its trophies long since scattered, all its blazon brushed away;
     And the flag that flies above it but a triumph of to-day.

     Never scar of siege or battle challenges the wandering eye,
     Never breach of warlike onset holds the curious passer-by;
     Only one sweet human fancy interweaves its threads of gold
     With the plain and homespun present, and a love that ne'er grows old;
     Only one thing holds its crumbling walls above the meaner dust,
     Listen to the simple story of a woman's love and trust.

     Count von Resanoff, the Russian, envoy of the mighty Czar,
     Stood beside the deep embrasures, where the brazen cannon are.
     He with grave provincial magnates long had held serene debate
     On the Treaty of Alliance and the high affairs of state;
     He from grave provincial magnates oft had turned to talk apart