The Fourth Watch of the Night

On December 6, 1875 a steamship bound for America from Brehmen struck a sand bar in the Thames River during a violent ice storm.  Seventy eight persons died that night as the Deutschland went down, including five Franciscan nuns.  The nuns had been driven from their home in Germany by anti-Catholic laws and were seeking safety in a new land.  Instead of safety their flight brought them nature’s fury.  They heard and saw things they could hardly bear: children crying in the hold where they were trapped; a sailor trying to rescue the children, lowering himself by a rope, disappearing from sight, then his headless body hanging loose––a hideous sign he had failed to reach them.  Everywhere they saw men and women crying, consoling one another, cursing God; all were beyond human help.  Finally the bulkhead cracked.  The nuns held hands and prayed their last as they were swept away by the rushing waters.

The ship had entered the Kentish Knock before dawn and struggled against the wind all day and into the night, when the nuns uttered their last.  As the ship sank lower into the sea, a Roman Catholic priest at St. Beuno's theological college many miles to the west recited his last office of the day and then took refuge in his bed: it was his only refuge––an affliction of the spirit so troubled him that he often sought it early.  Parish work had proved too demanding, and so his bishop permitted him to live at St. Beuno's, where his duties were light and he had time for his poetry.  But even at the college he was troubled by dark spells and visionary flights that robbed him of his will to write, even the will to pray.  He had not composed a poem in seven years.  In his earlier years he had written a few poems––fragments, mostly––but his father, a marine insurance adjuster, distracted him with stories of dangerous seas and disasters.  But his spiritual nature prevailed: he took holy orders and composed several poems that revealed a rich and probing mind.  The writing and the praying stopped, however, when the affliction came upon him.  For seven years he wrote nothing and his prayers were perfunctory.

When he woke up on Tuesday the seventh he heard that the Deutschland had gone down and taken five nuns with her.  At once he went after the facts.  He asked his mother in London to send him the Times and the Illustrated News, in which he was able to read reports from survivors and eyewitnesses.  As he read he imagined himself a witness: He stands at the water's edge and hears the cries of those about to drown.  He sees a sailor take pity on the children below and come down from the rigging at the end of a rope, only to lose his life when the breakers dash his head against the raised keel.  He feels the terror of those who are blown into the water.  He follows the ship's agonized turning from about midnight to just before dawn.  Always his eye is upon the five nuns: their head is a tall lioness of a woman, strong and brave; she leads the others in prayer and keeps up their faith.  Then, a cracking sound beneath them...they cling to a rail as the ship pitches sharply and the stern sinks into the sea.  The tall nun shuts her eyes against the slashing wind.  Her lips move in prayer––her last.  Her head rolls portside.  Suddenly she calls out

CHRIST, O CHRIST, COME QUICKLY

When he heard the words of the nun, he must have recalled the last words that St. John the Divine, the seer of The Apocalypse, spoke to an army of martyrs: “Come, Lord Jesus, come.”  Then he turned his head and gazed at the dark shapes of souls in the water, their arms flailing, their hopes fading.  And he saw...  could it be?––what the nun saw.  Her eyes were closed, yet she called out.  Yes, he saw it too.

When he finished the newspapers, he rose and made his way to the college chapel.  On bent knee he offered his prayers for God's mercy upon the souls of the five who perished and the many other souls who were lost.  Then he went to his room and shut the door.  If he could pray he could write.  He picked up his pen.  After seven lean years, the words began to come.  Images and symbols rushed into his head as he pondered the last five words of the tall nun.  He saw her again in his mind's eye, joining hands with the others like Christian martyrs marching to their death in the gladiatorial arena.  Then he wondered if the nun had merely recited a text from her daily devotion––it was the eve of Blessed Mary's Holy Day; how admirable; she was loyal to the end.  A cynical thought came upon him: the nun merely prayed for a speedy end to her ordeal.  No: he rejected these thoughts.

His lean years had taught him much. In his deep abyss he learned to see when the outer eye is shut.  That night he saw what the nun saw––Jesus walking over the water to the Deutschland.

The poem that began to form was a thicket of images, allusions, numbers, and sacramental metaphors.  He was searching even as he wrote.  He saw Jesus.  B