Iv

Blessed is the martyr’s crown And valiant were they who wore In Francis’ name the corded gown And to the heathen bore The Cross of Christus crucified, With thorn-pressed brow and piercéd side And body wounded sore:

Like valiant soldiers they did come To preach their Gospel mild And find them sweetest martyrdom Within an heathen wild---- St. Francis’ men, who turned to kiss The Crucifix, and met their bliss, And on their murderers smiled.

Bruit had come to the Pecos folk Of warrior-men from Heaven, Who strid strange beasts and in thunders spoke And armed them with red levin---- Who bannered their hosts with new gods and dread And shook the land with a terrible tread Where they searched for the Cities Seven:

And the Priests and the Elders wafted high The smoke of their questioning prayer, And they asked of Earth and they asked of the Sky And they asked of the Lords of the Air---- And the signs breathed peace, and they were content, And unto the strangers their captains they sent With gifts and with covenants fair.

For why should they fear the stranger’s face When the Powers whom their sires had known Had boded them well from the Sacred Place With its ancient divining stone? Why should men fear who through perilous past By their strong gods warded were mighty at last Into a nation grown?

So with flute and with drum and with gala cheer Forth they thronged them to greet The steeled and glittering Cavalier And the Friar with way-worn feet---- And the men of Spain found pleasant rest, And the ovens glowed, and each grateful guest Warm-scented the odors sweet:

Oh, the men of Spain in Pecos town Were welcomed with joyous array, Whose folk little dreamed as the dusk closed down That their Sun had ended that day---- That an Age of the Red Man’s World was past, And down from their altars his gods were cast To silently vanish away!

Oh, who could the bitterness and the blood Of their lurid morrow know? Where the aged shaman sat grim with his brood Of the Spirits of long ago, And the lonely friar with his lifted sign Stood watching the riders in drifting line Pass out to the morning glow:

And who should rue his martyr’s crown To the valiant soul who wore In Francis’ name the corded gown And to the heathen bore The Cross of Christus crucified, With thorn-pressed brow and piercéd side And body wounded sore?

In after years they came again In corded robe and cowl, The army of St. Francis’ men, With book and adz and trowel---- And they builded their church and their masses said, And they pastored the living and prayed for the dead, And succored them many a soul:

And the folk of the ancient citadel To Christian rites were born, And they harkened to a Christian bell, And they prayed to Christ each morn---- And sometimes in the fading day Their olden altars, in decay, With plumes they did adorn.

And the lonely friar with his lifted sign Stood watching the riders in drifting line Pass out to the morning glow. ]