(Note: Boatmen, at night, staring into the fog and haze in search of
certain marks and objects, often think to see them, only to have them
disappear again when they blink their eyes. These visual illusions are
called Padre’s Beacons. An old boatman, many years ago, told how the
name originated, and his story is here set down in rhyme.)
With eager eyes an Indian peered
Into the darkness of the night,
And his canoe he swiftly sheered
From right to left, from left to right;
For lost within the blinding fog,
He saw the mad waves roll and toss,
And found both snag and sunken log
But not the Padre’s beacon cross.
He dipped his paddle in the sea,
And found its depth now less, now more;
And where he thought the Pass would be
He only found a weedstrewn shore.
He questioned of the hidden star,
And counseled with the waning moon,
But found no answer, near or far,
Only the lone cry of the loon.
And he had steered by wave and wind
To where the beacon cross should be,
That marked the place where all might find
The way into the Trinity.
For there, ’mong cypress trees grown gray,
The padre’s little hut showed white,
Beneath a shining cross by day,
And in a taper’s gleam by night.
But vandal hands had cut adrift
The padre’s beacon in the night,
And without prayer, and without shrift,
A sea wrecked soul at dawn took flight.
And now who sails the bay at night,
And scans the dark with eager eyes,
Out of the sea, grown gray with light,
Can see a beacon cross arise.
For since that night long, long ago,
When clouds hang wide and fogs lie deep,
For him that laid that beacon low
There is no rest in death, or sleep;
All night he lifts it from the sea,
All night he strives, and strives in vain;
He stands it up, but when set free
It sinks into the sea again.