Friar Pedro's Ride Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABABCD EFEFEFFB GHGHGHCC IHIHIHBB CDCDCDCC BGBGBGBB BBBBBBCC DHDHDHBB JBJBJBCB KCKBLBBB DMDMDMHH BBBBBBCB BNBNBNOO CDCDCDBB BPBQBQCC BCBCBCHH CHCHCHBB QDQDQDCC BGBGBGCC DQQQQQBBIt was the morning season of the year | A |
It was the morning era of the land | B |
The watercourses rang full loud and clear | A |
Portala's cross stood where Portala's hand | B |
Had planted it when Faith was taught by Fear | A |
When monks and missions held the sole command | B |
Of all that shore beside the peaceful sea | C |
Where spring tides beat their long drawn reveille | D |
- | |
Out of the mission of San Luis Rey | E |
All in that brisk tumultuous spring weather | F |
Rode Friar Pedro in a pious way | E |
With six dragoons in cuirasses of leather | F |
Each armed alike for either prayer or fray | E |
Handcuffs and missals they had slung together | F |
And as an aid the gospel truth to scatter | F |
Each swung a lasso alias a riata | B |
- | |
In sooth that year the harvest had been slack | G |
The crop of converts scarce worth computation | H |
Some souls were lost whose owners had turned back | G |
To save their bodies frequent flagellation | H |
And some preferred the songs of birds alack | G |
To Latin matins and their souls' salvation | H |
And thought their own wild whoopings were less dreary | C |
Than Father Pedro's droning miserere | C |
- | |
To bring them back to matins and to prime | I |
To pious works and secular submission | H |
To prove to them that liberty was crime | I |
This was in fact the Padre's present mission | H |
To get new souls perchance at the same time | I |
And bring them to a sense of their condition | H |
That easy phrase which in the past and present | B |
Means making that condition most unpleasant | B |
- | |
He saw the glebe land guiltless of a furrow | C |
He saw the wild oats wrestle on the hill | D |
He saw the gopher working in his burrow | C |
He saw the squirrel scampering at his will | D |
He saw all this and felt no doubt a thorough | C |
And deep conviction of God's goodness still | D |
He failed to see that in His glory He | C |
Yet left the humblest of His creatures free | C |
- | |
He saw the flapping crow whose frequent note | B |
Voiced the monotony of land and sky | G |
Mocking with graceless wing and rusty coat | B |
His priestly presence as he trotted by | G |
He would have cursed the bird by bell and rote | B |
But other game just then was in his eye | G |
A savage camp whose occupants preferred | B |
Their heathen darkness to the living Word | B |
- | |
He rang his bell and at the martial sound | B |
Twelve silver spurs their jingling rowels clashed | B |
Six horses sprang across the level ground | B |
As six dragoons in open order dashed | B |
Above their heads the lassos circled round | B |
In every eye a pious fervor flashed | B |
They charged the camp and in one moment more | C |
They lassoed six and reconverted four | C |
- | |
The Friar saw the conflict from a knoll | D |
And sang Laus Deo and cheered on his men | H |
Well thrown Bautista that's another soul | D |
After him Gomez try it once again | H |
This way Felipe there the heathen stole | D |
Bones of St Francis surely that makes TEN | H |
Te Deum laudamus but they're very wild | B |
Non nobis Domine all right my child | B |
- | |
When at that moment as the story goes | J |
A certain squaw who had her foes eluded | B |
Ran past the Friar just before his nose | J |
He stared a moment and in silence brooded | B |
Then in his breast a pious frenzy rose | J |
And every other prudent thought excluded | B |
He caught a lasso and dashed in a canter | C |
After that Occidental Atalanta | B |
- | |
High o'er his head he swirled the dreadful noose | K |
But as the practice was quite unfamiliar | C |
His first cast tore Felipe's captive loose | K |
And almost choked Tiburcio Camilla | B |
And might have interfered with that brave youth's | L |
Ability to gorge the tough tortilla | B |
But all things come by practice and at last | B |
His flying slip knot caught the maiden fast | B |
- | |
Then rose above the plain a mingled yell | D |
Of rage and triumph a demoniac whoop | M |
The Padre heard it like a passing knell | D |
And would have loosened his unchristian loop | M |
But the tough raw hide held the captive well | D |
And held alas too well the captor dupe | M |
For with one bound the savage fled amain | H |
Dragging horse Friar down the lonely plain | H |
- | |
Down the arroyo out across the mead | B |
By heath and hollow sped the flying maid | B |
Dragging behind her still the panting steed | B |
And helpless Friar who in vain essayed | B |
To cut the lasso or to check his speed | B |
He felt himself beyond all human aid | B |
And trusted to the saints and for that matter | C |
To some weak spot in Felipe's riata | B |
- | |
Alas the lasso had been duly blessed | B |
And like baptism held the flying wretch | N |
A doctrine that the priest had oft expressed | B |
Which like the lasso might be made to stretch | N |
But would not break so neither could divest | B |
Themselves of it but like some awful fetch | N |
The holy Friar had to recognize | O |
The image of his fate in heathen guise | O |
- | |
He saw the glebe land guiltless of a furrow | C |
He saw the wild oats wrestle on the hill | D |
He saw the gopher standing in his burrow | C |
He saw the squirrel scampering at his will | D |
He saw all this and felt no doubt how thorough | C |
The contrast was to his condition still | D |
The squaw kept onward to the sea till night | B |
And the cold sea fog hid them both from sight | B |
- | |
The morning came above the serried coast | B |
Lighting the snow peaks with its beacon fires | P |
Driving before it all the fleet winged host | B |
Of chattering birds above the Mission spires | Q |
Filling the land with light and joy but most | B |
The savage woods with all their leafy lyres | Q |
In pearly tints and opal flame and fire | C |
The morning came but not the holy Friar | C |
- | |
Weeks passed away In vain the Fathers sought | B |
Some trace or token that might tell his story | C |
Some thought him dead or like Elijah caught | B |
Up to the heavens in a blaze of glory | C |
In this surmise some miracles were wrought | B |
On his account and souls in purgatory | C |
Were thought to profit from his intercession | H |
In brief his absence made a deep impression | H |
- | |
A twelvemonth passed the welcome Spring once more | C |
Made green the hills beside the white faced Mission | H |
Spread her bright dais by the western shore | C |
And sat enthroned a most resplendent vision | H |
The heathen converts thronged the chapel door | C |
At morning mass when says the old tradition | H |
A frightful whoop throughout the church resounded | B |
And to their feet the congregation bounded | B |
- | |
A tramp of hoofs upon the beaten course | Q |
Then came a sight that made the bravest quail | D |
A phantom Friar on a spectre horse | Q |
Dragged by a creature decked with horns and tail | D |
By the lone Mission with the whirlwind's force | Q |
They madly swept and left a sulphurous trail | D |
And that was all enough to tell the story | C |
And leave unblessed those souls in purgatory | C |
- | |
And ever after on that fatal day | B |
That Friar Pedro rode abroad lassoing | G |
A ghostly couple came and went away | B |
With savage whoop and heathenish hallooing | G |
Which brought discredit on San Luis Rey | B |
And proved the Mission's ruin and undoing | G |
For ere ten years had passed the squaw and Friar | C |
Performed to empty walls and fallen spire | C |
- | |
The Mission is no more upon its wall | D |
The golden lizards slip or breathless pause | Q |
Still as the sunshine brokenly that falls | Q |
Through crannied roof and spider webs of gauze | Q |
No more the bell its solemn warning calls | Q |
A holier silence thrills and overawes | Q |
And the sharp lights and shadows of to day | B |
Outline the Mission of San Luis Rey | B |
Bret Harte
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