e
Is Ramon!
I'm the drunken engineer,
I'm the coward, Senor"-- Here
He fell over, by that sign,
Dead as stone!

DON DIEGO OF THE SOUTH

(REFECTORY, MISSION SAN GABRIEL, 1869)

Good!--said the Padre,--believe me still,
"Don Giovanni," or what you will,
The type's eternal! We knew him here
As Don Diego del Sud. I fear
The story's no new one! Will you hear?

One of those spirits you can't tell why
God has permitted. Therein I
Have the advantage, for I hold
That wolves are sent to the purest fold,
And we'd save the wolf if we'd get the lamb.
You're no believer? Good! I am.

Well, for some purpose, I grant you dim,
The Don loved women, and they loved him.
Each thought herself his LAST love! Worst,
Many believed that they were his FIRST!
And, such are these creatures since the Fall,
The very doubt had a charm for all!

You laugh! You are young, but I--indeed
I have no patience... To proceed:--
You saw, as you passed through the upper town,
The Eucinal where the road goes down
To San Felipe! There one morn
They found Diego,--his mantle torn,
And as many holes through his doublet's band
As there were wronged husbands--you understand!

"Dying," so said the gossips. "Dead"
Was what the friars who found him said.
May be. Quien sabe? Who else should know?
It was a hundred years ago.
There was a funeral. Small indeed--
Private. What would you? To proceed:--

Scarcely the year had flown. One night
The Commandante awoke in fright,
Hearing below his casement's bar
The well-known twang of the Don's guitar;
And rushed to the window, just to see
His wife a-swoon on the balcony.

One week later, Don Juan Ramirez
Found his own daughter, the Dona Inez,
Pale as a ghost, leaning out to hear
The song of that phantom cavalier.
Even Alcalde Pedro Blas
Saw, it was said, through his niece's glass,
The shade of Diego twice repass.

What these gentlemen each confessed
Heaven and the Church only knows. At best
The case was a bad one. How to deal
With Sin as a Ghost, they couldn't but feel
Was an awful thing. Till a certain Fray
Humbly offered to show the way.

And the way was this