Giant Hours with Poet Preachers Part 12

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

For he knew the heart hunger for G.o.d that was in every human breast:

"I am full-fed, and yet I hunger!

Who set this fiercer famine in my maw?

Who set this fiercer hunger in my heart?"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

From "Drake" comes that scintillating line: "A scribble of G.o.d's finger in the sky"; and an admonition to the preacher: "Thou art G.o.d's minister, not G.o.d's oracle!"

Nor did he forget that man, in his search for G.o.d, is, after all, but man, and weak! So from "Tales of a Mermaid Tavern":

"... and of that other Ocean Where all men sail so blindly, and misjudge Their friends, their charts, their storms, their stars, their _G.o.d!_"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

Even like unto "Bo'sin Bill," who was and is a prevalent type, but not a serious type--that man who claims to be an atheist, but in times of stress, like unto us all, turns to G.o.d. And what humorous creatures we are! Enough to make G.o.d smile, if he did not love us so much:

"But our bo'sin Bill was an atheist still Ex-cept--sometimes--in the dark!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

And again from "The Paradox":

"Flas.h.i.+ng forth as a flame, The unnameable Name, The ineffable Word, _I am the Lord_!"

"I am the End to which the whole world strives: Therefore are ye girdled with a wild desire and shod With sorrow; for among you all no soul Shall ever cease, or sleep, or reach its goal Of union and communion with the Whole Or rest content with less than being G.o.d."

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

And thus we find G.o.d, with Noyes. And I have saved for the last quotation one from "The Origin of Life," which the poet says is "Written in answer to certain scientific theories." I save it for the last because, strangely, it sums up all the journey that we have pa.s.sed through, from childhood to G.o.d-hood:

"Watched the great hills like clouds arise and set, And one--named Olivet; When you have seen as a shadow pa.s.sing away, One child clasp hands and pray; When you have seen emerge from that dark mire One martyr ringed with fire; Or, from that Nothingness, by special grace One woman's love-lit face...."

"Dare you re-kindle then, One faith for faithless men, And say you found, on that dark road you trod, In the beginning, _G.o.d_?"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN MASEFIELD.]

VII

JOHN MASEFIELD, POET FOR THE PULPIT [Footnote: The poetical selections appearing in this chapter are used by permission, and are taken from the following works: The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street, Salt Water Poems and Ballads, and Good Friday, published by The Macmillan Company, New York.]

To climb is to achieve. We like to see men achieve; and the harder that achievement is, the more we thrill to it. For that reason we all have a hope to climb a Shasta, or a Whitney, or a Hood to its whitest peak, and glory in the achievement. And because of this human delight in the climb we thrill to see a man climb out of sin, or out of difficulty, or out of defeat to triumph.

From "bar-boy" to poet is a great achievement, a great climb, or leap, or lift, whichever figure you may prefer, but that is exactly what John Masefield did.

Perhaps Hutton's figure may describe it better--"The Leap to G.o.d." At least ten years ago John Masefield, a wanderer on the face of the earth, found himself in New York city without friends and without means, and it was not to him an unusual thing to accept the position of "bar-boy" in a New York saloon. This particular profession has within its scope the duties of wiping the beer bottles, sweeping the floor, and other menial tasks.

And now John Masefield has within recent months come to New York city to be the lauded and feted. Newspaper reporters met him as his boat landed, eager for his every word; Carnegie Hall was crowded to hear him read from his own poetry; and his journey across the country was just a great triumph from New York to San Francisco.

Something had happened in those ten years. This man had achieved. This poet had climbed to G.o.d. This man had experienced the "Soul's Leap to G.o.d." He had found that Man of all men who once said, "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me." He always lifts men out of nothing into the glory of the greatest achievement. Yes, something had happened in those ten years.

And the things that had happened in those ten years are perfectly apparent in his writings if one follow them from the beginning to the end. And the things that had happened I shall trace through this poet's writings from the first, boyhood verses of "Salt Water Ballads" to "Good Friday"; and therein lies the secret; and incidentally therein lies some of the most thrilling human touches, vivid ill.u.s.trations for the preacher; some of the most intensely interesting religious experiences that any biography ever revealed consciously or unconsciously.

I. THE SOUL PSYCHOLOGY OF HIS YOUTH IN "SALT WATER BALLADS"

One may search these "Salt Water Ballads" through from the opening line of "Consecration" to "The Song At Parting" and find no faint suggestion of that deep religious glory of "The Everlasting Mercy." This book was written, even as Masefield says, "in my boyhood; all of it in my youth." He has not caught the deeper meaning of life yet--the spiritual meaning--although he has caught the social meaning, just as Markham has caught it.

1. _Social Consciousness_

Even in "Consecration" we hear the challenging ring of a young voice who has wandered over the face of the earth and has taken his place with the "Outcast," has cast his lot with the sailor, the stoker, the tramp.

"Not the ruler for me, but the ranker, the tramp of the road, The slave with the sack on his shoulders p.r.i.c.ked on with the goad, The man with too weighty a burden, too weary a load.

"Others may sing of the wine and the wealth, and the mirth, The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth; Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust, and the sc.u.m of the earth!

"Mine be a handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould.

Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in the rain and the cold-- Of these shall my songs be fas.h.i.+oned, my tales be told. Amen."

Salt Water Poems and Ballads.

And it is a most fascinating story to see him climb from his boyhood, purely social, sympathetic interest in the outcast to that higher, that highest social consciousness, vitalized with religion. Here, seems it to me, that those who possess true social consciousness must come at last if they do their most effective work for the social regeneration of the world. Many have tremendous social consciousness, but no Christ.

Christ himself is the very pulse beat of the social regeneration.

Without him it must fail.

One feels, even here in his youth poems, however, a promise of that deeper Masefield that later finds his soul in "The Everlasting Mercy."

2. _Faith in Immortality_

In "Rest Her Soul," these haunting lines with that expression of a deep faith found in "All that dies of her," we find a ray of light, which slants through a small window of the man that is to be:

"On the black velvet covering her eyes Let the dull earth be thrown; Her's is the mightier silence of the skies, And long, quiet rest alone.

Over the pure, dark, wistful eyes of her, O'er all the human, all that dies of her, Gently let flowers be strown."

Salt Water Poems and Ballads.