Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE REASON WHY, by AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE REASON WHY, by                    
First Line: Up and down the face of telegraph hill
Last Line: And mayhap would have changed the end.
Subject(s): Disasters; Gray (color); San Francisco Earthquake And Fire (1906); Smoke; Grey (color)


Up and down the face of Telegraph Hill
While our city was swept by flames,
An Italian tore, and he prayed and he swore,
And he called all his saints by name.

When, deaf or afar, they answered him not,
He dissolved into filial tears;
In the red-black sky still the pyre blazed high
Of the city he'd loved for years.

Then a sudden thought lit his swarthy face,
"The Patron! St. Francis, the blest!"
In relief from despair, he plunged down the long stair
To his house with its relic chest.

Quoth he, as a banner of silk he unfurled,
"This is Francis Assisi's hour;
A saint of such fame must defend his name,
Our homes he must save by his power."

That banner he waved that Assisi might see,
But still the flames rolled on;
"O Francis! behold the folk and the gold!"
But by morning the city was gone.

All night he had borne St. Francis on high
From each point of that rampart-wall.
"What's the use of a saint!" With his blaspemous plaint
He collapsed, Assisi and all.

Next day, quite limp from the shock to his faith,
That banner he found where it lay
On a roof, with the face staring up in disgrace,
Half buried in ashes of gray.

That face! " 'Tis Francis of Sales!" he cried:
"O Mother of God!" he wailed;
"What's the patron about that he didn't watch out?
Or in penance, perhaps, I have failed."

"O Francis Asis! How did Sales get in?
'Tis not he has the charge of our town;
How dare a saint rob a saint of his job
And let all the houses burn down?"

He seized the staff of that banner defamed,
As anger burst forth from despair;
"If this Frenchman likes fire he shall have his desire;
San Francisco's fate let him share."

As a living coal dropped down at his feet
To its sacrificial flame
He touched the fold of that silk and gold,
And he burned it, the face and the name.

That martyr ablaze he wigwagged aloft
With jeers that were pious complaints;
For another's mistake, Sales dropped at the stake,
As is often the habit of saints.

So that's why the City of Francis was burned;
The wrong saint was called to defend.
If Assisi'd been there he'd have heard the wild prayer,
And mayhap would have changed the end.





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