Little Gray Songs From St. Joseph's

By Grace Fallow Norton

IN the winter of 1903, a cold night and a colder dawning sent girls shivering to their work in the mills of an American town; among them Leonie X—, the still girl who never told her name. She, frail and weary as she was, slipped upon the icy pavement and fell. The hurt proving dire, she was carried to a small Franciscan hospital hard by, where she lay for two years — true to herself — saying little with her lips and much with her mournful eyes.

During the illness she wrote many “little letters to herself,” which were hidden beneath her pillow, and which the good Sister Jérôme, who was her sole nurse, lovingly preserved after her death.

“Une odeur d’ether un jour de soleil.”

I

THERE be some that seaward roam,
Adventurers of mere and main;
They watch the wave, follow the foam.
There be those that hunt at home,
Adventurers of pain.
There be those that leave the vale,
And from the hearthstone turn away,
Heart-homeless if their footsteps fail
Some houseless snowy height to scale,
Ere light dies with the day.
There be some would know the North,
And some would plant the desert-place;
Daily their feet are driven forth,
Their hands have measured the round earth —
Adventurers of space.
And they that hunt at home — that; lie
Unhelped, alas, of near and far?
O gulfs as great gather their cry,
And hosts as fair their victory —
The seekers of the Star.
To leap to some sharp peak of pain,
To scream white-mouth’d upon those heights,
Transported by a truth made plain —
From mad despair to wrest the rein —
To delve in breathless nights
As they were mines of gold for men —
Bravely to launch on each new day
A hope, wave-racked and wrecked again —
To conquer through the fever-fen —
Toward Death to lead the way.
O, there be some that seaward roam,
Adventurers of mere and main —
They watch the wave, follow the foam;
There be those that hunt at home,
Adventurers of pain.

II

Nay, we are loads for them to lift,
And straws to show their current’s drift,
And we are riddles they must sift —
Even riddles they must read.
And we are signs of their unthrift
Ay — signs of tasks that they have left.
They shall be shriven with this shrift —
“Go make their need your need.”

III

There is a desert of despair,
Where never seed was sown;
There is a wilderness called night,
Wherein I lie alone,
And there my voice goes crying forth.
O were a sound a star!
My cry is all there is of light
In a land where no lamps are.

IV

If my dark grandam had but known,
Or yet my wild grandsir,
Or the lord that lured the maid away That was my sad mother,
O had they known, O had they dreamed What gift it was they gave,
Would they have stayed their wild, wild love,
Nor made my years their slave?
Must they have stopped their hungry lips From love at thought of me?
O life, O life, how may we learn Thy strangest mystery?
Nay, they knew not, as we scarce know.
Their souls — O let them rest;
My life is pupil unto pain —
With him I make my quest.

V

Mary, mother of Christ’s body,
I have no songs to sing to thee;
The long, long years for thy grief’s rack;
Mine eyes turn forward and not back.
The long, long past from thee to me Is full of mothers’ misery,
And griefs of girls and Stranger Sons —
The long, long hope before us runs.
The incense they have burned to thee,
O puzzling strange it is to me;
Slaughter of sons in thy son’s name,
And motherhood turned to maiden’s shame.

Mary, mother of misery,
Here I give thanks, girl that I be,
No son of mine shall drain the cup
That Jesu’s hand hath fillèd up.

(Here I give thanks— girl that I be —
O the young torn heart of me!
Branch at the window telleth of Spring;
My body hath no burgeoning.)
O will-less, mute Maternity —
(Mary, mother of slavery).
No link I be in the long, long chain
Of human sighs and human pain.

VI

With cassock black, baret and book,
Father Saran goes by;
I think he goes to say a prayer
For one who has to die.
Even so, some day, Father Saran
May say a prayer for me;
Myself meanwhile, the Sister tells,
Should pray unceasingly.
They kneel who pray; how may I kneel
Who face to ceiling lie,
Shut out by all that man has made
From God who made the sky?
They lift who pray —the low earth-born —
A humble heart to God;
But O, my heart of clay is proud —
True sister to the sod.
I look into the face of God,
They say bends over me;
I search the dark, dark face of God —
O what is it I see?
I see — who lie fast bound, who may
Not kneel — who can but seek —
I see mine own face over me,
With tears upon its cheek.

VII

Friend, thy page says “Pleasure,”
Friend, my page says “Pain.”

But what is the end of our reading?
O it is the same!
Knowledge each will be heeding.

Friend, thy path is pleasure,
Friend, I go with pain.

What is the end of our going?
O for each the same;
Ourselves we shall be knowing.

Friend, thy food is pleasure;
My bread and meat are pain.

What is the end of our living?
For each, for each the same!
Deep sight it will be giving.

VIII

My dearest, fairest hope
(O life’s full bitter tide)
Had his Gethsemane last night
On the lone mountain-side.
Then out upon bare Golgotha
How great and sure he died.
At the right side of him and left.
Two fears were crucified.

IX

That day whereon I die they’ll say,
“How bright doth shine the sun!
A little cloud hath flown away,
Its race with darkness done.
“A little cloud hath fallen in tears,
That covered up the morn;
See now the earth sky-beauty wears
And starry flowers are born.
“See now the earth fresh-clad, arrayed
In robes that bear the rose;
A little stormy cloud that strayed
Now homeward, homeward goes.”
Yea, of my journey o’er the skies,
My flight unto the flowers,
I pray more beauty shall arise,
I pray — more light be yours.