Are things what they seem?
Or is visions about?
Is our civilization a failure?
Or is the Caucasian played out?




The Wonderful Spring of San Joaquin.



Of all the fountains that poets sing,--
Crystal, thermal, or mineral spring;
Ponce de Leon's Fount of Youth;
Wells with bottoms of doubtful truth;
In short, of all the springs of Time
That ever were flowing in fact or rhyme,
That ever were tasted, felt, or seen,--
There were none like the Spring of San Joaquin.

_Anno Domini_ Eighteen-Seven,
Father Dominguez (now in heaven,--
_Obiit_, Eighteen twenty-seven)
Found the spring, and found it, too,
By his mule's miraculous cast of a shoe;
For his beast--a descendant of Balaam's ass--
Stopped on the instant, and would not pass.

The Padre thought the omen good,