Benedict XIV expects more rain
Castel Gandolfo, July 1741
It’s yet another rainy day here in Calgary. My housemate, who’s a gardener, has the day off work again, the cat would rather do some lines of catnip than go out, and my thoughts, as they so often do, turn to Pope Benedict XIV.
Benedict XIV expects more rain
Castel Gandolfo, 1741
Some few days of wet weather and everyone’s complaining:
You’d think the Castellani had never seen it raining
In July. It isn’t, now, as in the days of Noah –
The scullery servants make their excuses not to go
Outside to run quotidian errands in the summer showers
And scrub and sweep instead, passing all their little hours,
The senior steward says, pronouncing litanies out loud.
But all this pious praying hasn’t, so far, moved a cloud
Or vouchsafed for us so much as an hour of happy sun.
It gives me some relief to know I’m not the only one
Whose knees are bent without a visible result to show –
A shepherd whose good sheep wander where he is wont to go.