THE MASS OF MANGAS
Mission San Xavier del Bac, near Tucson, Arizona.
Years had the Mission stood alone,Its silent chapels bat-tenanted;On its altars the gray owl nested her young,And the ground squirrels burrowed above the deadBy the western wall, nor stirred their sleep;Bare lay the fields, sun-scorched and white;—As black hawks scatter the timorous quailPadre and soldier and neophyteScattered before the Apache hordesThat swept the valley with death and flame—Now back at last like quail to their nests,Timorous, fearing, they slowly came,Priest and people; to wring anewFrom the sullen desert a grudging chanceFor scanty food and room to toil,Or a quick-won end on a blood-stained lance.With fragrant branches of gray mesquite,And waxen yuccas fair and tall;Lifting their bells like hands in prayer,Slender and snowy and virginal;And desert lilies as frail as hope,They wreathed the altars, and lit once moreThe long-dead altars, and set the roodOver the arrow-bitten door.The pale Christ leaned from the iron-wood crossHigh in its niche deep-walled and gray;And under his feet, in order set,Censer and chalice in rough-wrought clayWhere once was silver shaped in Spain—Now spoil of fight to the savage foe,And bandied from careless hand to handUnblest uses and lips to know.The tapers flickered and tenderlyThe last words whispered and echoed upTo the painted saints in the dusk above,As the padre lifted the earthen cupAnd the blessed wine—but crash it fell,Staining the floor with a crimson tideUnseen of the startled worshipers—For look! where the door unbarred swings wide!Sombre and splendid in paint and plume,With claws of eagle and puma skin,Mangas, the dread Apache chief,And a hundred braves at his back crowd in;He swept the shards of the cup asideAnd its silver mate on the altar set:“Padre, the boy you stopped to drawFrom the lion’s jaw makes good his debt.“With Death hot-heel on your track you turnedTo save a child of the enemy;Let these, beloved of your hidden God,Be bond of peace for mine and me;And these in thanks for that other day.”Censer and chalice he set them down,And bared his arms of their turquoise beads,And stripped the robe from his shoulders brown.Man by man his men heaped upThe pile till it grew to the Virgin’s feet;Skin and blanket, and beads that hungLike jeweled buds in the pale mesquite.Then swift as they came they went again;But, so ’tis writ in the Mission rolls,With wine and incense the padre straightSaid holy mass for their heathen souls,And held them saved to the Mother Church;For a grateful heart is a thing indeedThat weighed in the palm of the Savior’s handOut-values penance and prayer and creed;And year by year when the yucca bellsLike flags of truce swung tall and white,The name of Mangas was blessed anewWith book and taper and solemn rite.