The Miracle of Padre Junipero.
37
They stood and gazed for a little space
Down on his pallid and care-worn face,
And a smile of scorn went round the band
As they touched alternate with foot and hand
This mortal waif, that the outer space
Of dim mysterious sky and sand
Flung with so little of Christian grace
Down on their barren, sterile strand.
Said one to him: "It seems thy god
Is a very pitiful kind of god;
He could not shield thine aching eyes
From the blowing desert sands that rise,
Nor turn aside from thy old gray head
The glittering blade that is brandishéd
By the sun he set in the heavens high.
He could not moisten thy lips when dry;
The desert fire is in thy brain;
Thy limbs are racked with the fever-pain:
If this be the grace he sheweth thee
