The Wonderful Spring Of San Joaquin Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD EEEFFGG HIJKJJKAA LLLMNNNOPQQRRSS TTUUDDDD VVWWXXXSSDD YYSSZA2A2DDDD NNHHB2SISIC2C2OEPEDD D D2D2E2E2F2F2F2F2F2F2 DD Q PPPOf all the fountains that poets sing | A |
Crystal thermal or mineral spring | A |
Ponce de Leon's Fount of Youth | B |
Wells with bottoms of doubtful truth | B |
In short of all the springs of Time | C |
That ever were flowing in fact or rhyme | C |
That ever were tasted felt or seen | D |
There were none like the Spring of San Joaquin | D |
- | |
Anno Domini eighteen seven | E |
Father Dominguez now in heaven | E |
Obiit eighteen twenty seven | E |
Found the spring and found it too | F |
By his mule's miraculous cast of a shoe | F |
For his beast a descendant of Balaam's ass | G |
Stopped on the instant and would not pass | G |
- | |
The Padre thought the omen good | H |
And bent his lips to the trickling flood | I |
Then as the Chronicles declare | J |
On the honest faith of a true believer | K |
His cheeks though wasted lank and bare | J |
Filled like a withered russet pear | J |
In the vacuum of a glass receiver | K |
And the snows that seventy winters bring | A |
Melted away in that magic spring | A |
- | |
Such at least was the wondrous news | L |
The Padre brought into Santa Cruz | L |
The Church of course had its own views | L |
Of who were worthiest to use | M |
The magic spring but the prior claim | N |
Fell to the aged sick and lame | N |
Far and wide the people came | N |
Some from the healthful Aptos Creek | O |
Hastened to bring their helpless sick | P |
Even the fishers of rude Soquel | Q |
Suddenly found they were far from well | Q |
The brawny dwellers of San Lorenzo | R |
Said in fact they had never been so | R |
And all were ailing strange to say | S |
From Pescadero to Monterey | S |
- | |
Over the mountain they poured in | T |
With leathern bottles and bags of skin | T |
Through the canyons a motley throng | U |
Trotted hobbled and limped along | U |
The Fathers gazed at the moving scene | D |
With pious joy and with souls serene | D |
And then a result perhaps foreseen | D |
They laid out the Mission of San Joaquin | D |
- | |
Not in the eyes of faith alone | V |
The good effects of the water shone | V |
But skins grew rosy eyes waxed clear | W |
Of rough vaquero and muleteer | W |
Angular forms were rounded out | X |
Limbs grew supple and waists grew stout | X |
And as for the girls for miles about | X |
They had no equal To this day | S |
From Pescadero to Monterey | S |
You'll still find eyes in which are seen | D |
The liquid graces of San Joaquin | D |
- | |
There is a limit to human bliss | Y |
And the Mission of San Joaquin had this | Y |
None went abroad to roam or stay | S |
But they fell sick in the queerest way | S |
A singular maladie du pays | Z |
With gastric symptoms so they spent | A2 |
Their days in a sensuous content | A2 |
Caring little for things unseen | D |
Beyond their bowers of living green | D |
Beyond the mountains that lay between | D |
The world and the Mission of San Joaquin | D |
- | |
Winter passed and the summer came | N |
The trunks of madrono all aflame | N |
Here and there through the underwood | H |
Like pillars of fire starkly stood | H |
All of the breezy solitude | B2 |
Was filled with the spicing of pine and bay | S |
And resinous odors mixed and blended | I |
And dim and ghostlike far away | S |
The smoke of the burning woods ascended | I |
Then of a sudden the mountains swam | C2 |
The rivers piled their floods in a dam | C2 |
The ridge above Los Gatos Creek | O |
Arched its spine in a feline fashion | E |
The forests waltzed till they grew sick | P |
And Nature shook in a speechless passion | E |
And swallowed up in the earthquake's spleen | D |
The wonderful Spring of San Joaquin | D |
Vanished and never more was seen | D |
- | |
Two days passed the Mission folk | D2 |
Out of their rosy dream awoke | D2 |
Some of them looked a trifle white | E2 |
But that no doubt was from earthquake fright | E2 |
Three days there was sore distress | F2 |
Headache nausea giddiness | F2 |
Four days faintings tenderness | F2 |
Of the mouth and fauces and in less | F2 |
Than one week here the story closes | F2 |
We won't continue the prognosis | F2 |
Enough that now no trace is seen | D |
Of Spring or Mission of San Joaquin | D |
- | |
Moral | Q |
- | |
You see the point Don't be too quick | P |
To break bad habits better stick | P |
Like the Mission folk to your arsenic | P |
Bret Harte (francis)
(1)
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