Father Marquette

ES N e Vor. XLI

ME No. VI

A Magazine of Verse

MARCH 1933

PRELUDES TO 1833

FATHER MARQUETTE

TH days loafed, Marquette, and lay among the reeds

before you found them; the hours were still, they leaned

upon the sun slowly and went nowhere

before you came to them with words and waiting

and the long urgencies of prayer; they

delayed their march and moving, and the tread

of Time over the marsh was slow on soundless

trails; it moved on stealthily, alone

and still with sleep into unending ooze.

The days, Marquette, went down the prairie trails

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in aimless herds and turnings, before you found them,

and the long marchings of the hours declined

into unmoving sleep.

Why are your days

marching to holy destinies, Marquette;

why the long rigor and the rule of Time

lying relentless, lean, over the land

in ancient symmetries? Your hours are carved

of old remembrances, and the long cloth

of prayer wrapping around you can repel

the natural winds, the rain that pries upon

old blossoms of the yellow water lily,

the mellow sun, and hold beneath its folds

"Obedience, poverty, chastity" sternly against

the living flesh. But willows have no words;

the soundless water of the marsh, Marquette,

is sleep, release, forgetting; the reeds know not

of marchings in the wind, of driven ranks

and the stern vanities of your devotions.

Why will you wear this weary Hesh of words

over a life, Marquette, burdening your ways

and timeless wanderings with alien prayer,

marchings, with patterned hours and stark routines

till the frail soldier of the faith within

faints here upon the trail? For the day long

lay in silence under the prairie sun

before you labored here, and the wind

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was flesh enough, joyously prevailing

on the land with kind and fondling power.

The burden of the wind lay on the land;

the sky was bare of words, and the long

praying of rain far over the water

wanted no conquering. Why will you carry

time along the level stream, toiling

for an hour's brief reformation? Within-

within the clover's hood, within the fastness

of an August night is the far burning.

These prairie souls, Marquette, asked no salvation,

and the long wavings of the prairie grass

in silent beat and thunder to the horizon

were precious then, wanting no hand nor form

nor gray ritual of far Jehovah

over their growing; they were content and still.

They were content within the blowing wind,

and the long roll of the prairie under them

was a soundless tune; the deep wind blowing

through the cottonwoods flustered the air

with small meanings and left no other trace;

the sun rode down alone into the grass

of the far western plain. They were content

under the golden pattern of the day,

and the white stars upon the prairie night, -

the stars over this land, asked no salvation.

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