Father Sebastien Rale was a French Jesuit sent to New France in 1689 as a missionary. He labored among the Indians of Illinois and Maine. He was murdered by the British in 1724 at Narantsouak (Norridgewalk, Maine).

A Narantosouak, ce Octobre 1723

Monsieur et Tres-Cher Frere,

La paix de N.S.

During these thirty years of ardor spent

Au milieu forets avec les Sauvages,

I have been so occupied instructing them

In Christian virtue, dogma and in prayer

That I have had scarce leisure to write,

Even to you who are most dear to me.

Still, I cannot refuse the little account

You ask - that, in fact, I owe

In gratitude for the Love your letters show.

The village in which I dwell is called

Narantsouak: stoutly built

On the bank of a river, which runs

Into the sea not far below.

Besides a commodious Church, so well adorned

To be esteemed in France, two Chapels stand

On paths leading to fields and the shaded wood.

The Savage never fails to pause

A moment before these shrines...

Sometimes

I pray my work will save these souls

And my own soul. I've learned to take

Their salty fish, ground acorn meal,

The pumpkin mash and sickly corn.

I've gone like a mascot on the Bay

And built an altar over rocks

While Indians died to head me off

From British troopers' scarlet red...

And Yankee traders giving a rien

For winter's pile of heavy fur.

Like trees they fall...but do not fall.

I see myself crush down their earth.

I have trained a minor clergy

Of forty young males,

Who, in cassock and surplice, assistant

At Divine Service. Each has his duty

Not only serving me at Mass,

But chanting the Divine Office

Before the Blessed Sacrament, and in Processions -

Which are made with a great concourse of Savages.

If I could only bring them to Christ

And not myself, ainsi:

In August when they said New France

Was not bound by the Kennebec

I trembled with a chipmunk's rage

And had my children throw them back...

My Chief, his wife, depend for word,

For breath. They will not hunt or fish

Unless I try their traps and nets.

I had them burn revenge across

Those pilgrim fields - pillage by fire

Each house and barn.

We're forty leagues

From British coastal settlements.

This proximity, at first, somewhat pleased

The Savage not seeing the bald trap

Set for him and thinking only of the stores

Where he might trade. But at last

Seeing how fast the English villages

Surrounded him, he asked them by what right

They settled on his land and even built

Forts therein, and some of stone...

La response qu on lui fit savoir

Que le Roi de France avait cede

Son pays au Roi d'Angleterre,

Le jeta dans de plus grandes alarmes.

They came at once to me.

I said

Their hamlet's given for you to eat

And now a price upon my scalp! -

They say one-thousand pounds and still

Contend "the jesuit"

Upsets the Treaty of Utrecht

So they can mark King George fine trees

And push the "aborigines"

Off the islands' fertile shores,

From river bank and salmon falls,

Then jam their whale-boats deep inland -

Build a block-house...take command

Of the great forests the river feeds

With one iron cannon ball.

For dearer than the trade

The British could provide

Is the Faith the Savage holds,

And they believe to break with me

Would leave them without

Priest and Sacrifice.

My attempt to confirm the Savage

In his Faith is the King's great obstacle.

Each day I find myself alone

Along the river's edge, back far

Enough so not to fsee myself

Grow in among the sumac leaves

And stripling cedars rushing on

The river's face. I think I see

Another face: my youngest Brave's,

Who will go off in that first snow,

Northward where my forest bell

Will never ring. He'll climb the rock

And ankle-wearing cliffs which rise

Into Katahdin's winter jaw

Of never-thawing ice and prove

His youth and worthiness.

But I should tell you of the land.

Each year on Assumption Day

We harvest beans, corn and squash

Which lasts until all Hallows Eve.

At this time we leave for the Sea.

Besides large fish, shell fish and fruit

We find bustard, duck, and all sorts of game -

They cover the water like the green islands

On which we camp, where I bless the bounty.

By Purification Day all but the Hunters return.

They stalk the foraging bear, elk and deer.

But I no longer love the world

As I had thought. I sense its change

In me for what I brought

To rack against this sky

Where arrows strike their mark.

My hands

Pull Christ from his own bark and lathe

Away the proper bend and knot,

Lop off gray boughs and twist new leaves

Easily as a white canoe

Slides on flushing water.

Oh Satan, I am clawed by you!

I've given up hope of France:

Nor do I care whose cannon drums

Into the red wound of the sun,

Whose timber falls against the axe,

Whose foxes bark in iron traps.

A thousand sacred breads have fouled

All but the stench and salve of fire.

Some years ago the most able man among

The ministers of Boston came

At the foot of our river that he might teach

The children of the Savage. Neglecting nothing

He sought the children out and flattered them.

He made them little presents and put to them

Questions concerning their Faith, and then,

From answers made to him, he turned

Into derision, the Sacraments,

Purgatory, the invocation of the Saints,

The beads, crosses, lights and

Images we piously observe.

I dream they'll fill their hate

Into my eyes and throats with fists

Of pitch and mud; then prop me dead

Against a Church of broken bone

Which falls apart in lonely flame.

I dream my throat is white and bleeds.

I sent direct a Memoir to his school.

Some fifty pages proved

By Scripture and Tradition

Those Articles he dare attack by jest.

A wild laurel...

What's in a man

To sprinkle holy water when

You've preached your warriors to death?

It was that day I came across the hill

When Colonel Westbrook with his men

Had torn out from the river bank,

Then stormed with flame and bolting guns

Upon my Chapel, screaming, "Blood

Of Romish Rale, of Popery!"

Some angel gave me time to cross,

Attending me until I knew

I'd only given death to show

His consecrated bread and hold

This wood-burnt soul.

I hid in time

And swallowed every wafered host

Which I had blessed for week-day Mass.

A girl screamed for her black-robed priest;

A silent tongue gagged her throat.

A boy panicked in the fields;

His father's blood spat on his skin.

While black pellets battered Death

The glutton of the sacred bread

Ate with lust, with Adam's greed

That final yeast - viaticum.

I heard a Dies Irae spin

Like gnats around unbandaged wounds...

And fainting, heard my father's voice

The day I left the Norman shores...

Those billowing sails, the keen winds

Biting my eyes...

My cassock singed

And steamed. I swallowed every host

For every soul that had God's need.

I choked Christ's blessed body dead

Until my hollow throat seemed red.

I saw the bayberry candles melt

Across the altar cloth and smelled

My body's stench... I scrambled free

Sprawling beneath the evergreens.

I walked upon that ravagement

Absolvant des enfant morts.

A wild laurel borders the islands

Bearing fruit in Fall like the juniper tree.

They hang in such great clusters

One Savage can gather four minots a day,

From which I obtain ten livres of wax

And supply the Church with innumerable lights.

I shook the Chapel bell in tears

And cried Revenge! into their ears;

Then blessed each Brave that left that night...

They took my books, my breviary,

My little tin of China tea.

The dictionary by which I thought

My Indian parish would be taught

The mysteries of church and cross.

In Spring the maple-tree contains a fluid

Which trickles down the trunk to vessels of bark.

This needs only to be boiled...

Jesus, let me hear you hush

The ocean lapping on the rocks.

The winds which point the dark-blue firs.

The sea-hawk diving on white froth...

It is in death I'll bring Christ

And show his beauty where they strike.

If I must break apart and feed

The forest green, the birch, the hawk,

The snake, my blood will so descend

To change into the roots we eat,

And flash within the roebuck's eye.

My flesh will fall away with fish

And pebbled stone. My bones will start

The buds we bunch for virgin brides:

Et puis, que mon coeur eclate en flammes!

I will turn upon myself,

And change my ashes sinew-white.

Priez-le, mon cher frere...

Je suis, etc.

I'll drown the Kennebec with life!