Precept of Friendlessness

Juniorate: July 1933.

Shall my soul wander like a stewarding breeze
Along tall highways for the joy of it,
Guest-sathering for guestless halls all lit?
They were to house my Liege, and not for these...
Shall scrolls, white for his awful prophecies,
Clear volumes, with His verses to be writ,
Be scrawled with maddest nonsense, ruffian wit?
His miracles changed for vainest witcheries?

Night,—when He comes, field-weary, starry Reaper,
They'd flee, like fireflies frantic in a wind,
With blind bugs scurry, at his candle shown,
Leave palace rooms in wreck:—till then, O Keeper
Of my vowed life, save strict faith's stregth unthinned,
In lonliness, and yet,—not all alone....

Edwin Cuffe, S.J.