Bret Harte - Complete Poetical Works стр 15.

     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