The father at St. Inigoes has to possess a variety of accomplishments not acquired in the theological seminary. Priest, farmer, horseman, and boatman must all be combined to form the fine specimen of muscular Christianity required in this extensive mission. The place is no sinecure.
Good Father Thomas, obliged to visit a sick person at the very head of St. Mary's River, invited me to accompany him, and I gladly did so. Two colored servants went to manage the sail, or to row if necessary. The boat was black as a gondola of Venice. Sailing over these waters, where passed the Dove and the Ark, reminded me of the Père Jean and the novice René on the St. Lawrence. The whole country was, as we set out, glorified by the setting sun. The long points of land around which the river wound were bathed on one side by a golden mist, and on the other in a faint lilac. Over the gorgeous woods hung a purple haze that faded every instant. The amber clouds grew crimson, and then faded away into grey. The father said his breviary, leaving me to my own reflections a part of the way. There was not a ripple on the broad sheet save the receding ones left by our boat. Now and then we would stop to drink in the beauty of the scene—the sky, the water which reflected it, the lights and shadows on the banks, the melancholy cry of the whippoorwill, and the gay sounds of the laborers just through with their day's work. As it grew darker, the deep coves were filled with mysterious shades; the ripples left behind seemed tipped with a phosphorescent light. We glided at last into a sheltered cove just as the moon came out, giving enchantment to the whole scene. In such bright waters bathed Diana when Actaeon beheld her and was punished for his presumption. One of us repeated the beautiful lines of Shelley:
"My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside the helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever
Upon that many winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!
Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound."
A few days after, I sailed over to the Pavilion to take a boat for Washington.
A May Carol.
She hid her face from Joseph's blame,
The Spirit's glory-shrouded bride.
The Sword comes next; but first the Shame:
Meekly she bore, and naught replied.
For mutual sympathies we live:
The outraged heart forgives, but dies:
To her, that wound was sanative,
For life to her was sacrifice.
At us no random shaft is thrown
When charged with crimes by us unwrought;
For sins unchallenged, sins unknown,
Too oft have stained us—act and thought.
In past or present she could find
No sin to weep for; yet, no less,
Deeplier that hour the sense was shrined,
In her, of her own nothingness.
That hour foundations deeper yet
God sank in her; that so more high
Her greatness—spire and parapet—
Might rise, and nearer to the sky:
That, wholly overbuilt by grace,
Nature might vanish, like some isle
In great towers lost—the buried base
Of some surpassing fortress pile.
Aubrey De Vere.