Cecil John. The White Father. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

The White Father

By Cecil John


From “On the Edge” MEN never know what’s written in their stars.
Paul was a cadet of an old French line;
A lad, he was devout, on fire to serve,
Became père blanc, wore robes, and grew a soft brown beard.
Three times in Africa he learned new tongues	5
To bring the blacks to Christ;
He baptized greasy babes, confirmed half-naked urchins,
Wed savages in skins and beads
And heard thick-lipped confessions….
He heard one too many—	10
A slim young jade in scarlet calico,
Bare-shouldered, saucy-eyed,
Came whispering.

Later he in his turn confessed the wrong he’d done,
The coming trouble. One child more or less	15
To native wenches would not shake the world;
But his superior was virtuous—
Paul was unfrocked, no longer a père blanc.
He married that black girl;
He brought their black brat to the Holy Fount,	20
By his small hut—he tried to keep it clean;
He grew good vegetables to sell to the few Europeans of the post.
At last he shot himself.

Not in the consecrated ground
Could he find burial,	25
But on a lonely hillside, weighted down
With stones to keep the beasts away.