The Misión San Francisco de Asís, also known as Mission Dolores owing to a nearby stream called Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, is a historic Catholic church complex and the oldest structure in San Francisco, California. Founded in October 1776 to evangelize the indigenous Ohlone people, the mission has been the heart of Catholic outreach in the region ever since.
Atop the mission’s façade, ensconced within separate niches, hang three bells lashed to redwood beams with rawhide thongs. The oldest bell was cast in Mexico in 1792, traveling north along El Camino Real. The other two followed in 1797, calling the faithful to worship and reminding them to pray. Three times daily, at dawn, noon, and dusk, the bells continue to toll the Angelus, a Catholic devotion commemorating the Incarnation of Christ.
It is these bells and this holy tintinnabulation that inspired Francis Bret Harte's 1868 poem, “The Angelus.” In his depiction, Harte portrays the bells as a bridge between eras, intertwining the fading echoes of the past with the contemporary experiences of the community. The imagery of twilight and the blending of voices invoke a feeling of reverence – the solemn and spiritual resonance of this devotion.
Image: Portrait photograph of Francis Brett Hart (1836-1902) by Napoléon Sarony, 1872.
"The Angelus"
Francis Bret Harte
Bells of the Past, whose long-forgotten music
Still fills the wide expanse,
Tingeing the sober twilight of the Present
With color and romance:
I hear your call, and see the sun descending
On rock and wave and sand,
As down the coast the Mission voices blending
Girdle the heathen land.
Within the circle of your incantation
No blight or mildew falls;
Nor fierce unrest, nor lust, nor low ambition
Passes those airy walls.
Borne on the swell of your long waves receding,
I touch the farther past:
I see the dying glow of Spanish glory,
The sunset dream and last!
Before me rise the dome-shaped Mission towers,
The white Presidio;
The swart commander in his leathern jerkin,
The priest in a stole of snow.
Once more I see Portola’s cross uplifting
Above the setting sun;
And past the headland, northward, slowly drifting
The freighted galleon.
O solemn bells! whose consecrated masses
Recall the Faith of old —
O tinkling bells! that lulled with twighlight music
The spiritual fold!
Your voices break and falter in the darkness —
Break, falter, and are still,
And veiled and mystic, like the Host descending,
The sun sinks from the hill!
Cover image: Three bells hang above the entrance to the Misión San Francisco de Asís in San Francisco, California.
