Giant Hours with Poet Preachers Part 16

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

THE GOSPEL OF LOVE FOR ONE'S COUNTRY

And who shall say where the line of cleavage is between that love which clings to Friends; and that greater or conjugal love which moulds man and woman into one; and love for children, blood of one's blood, and love of country; and love of G.o.d? I say that those who are truly the great Lovers of the world love all of these and that not one is omitted. At least the truly great Lovers have the capacity for love of all these types. I have found no expression of paternal love in Brooke, for he had not come to that great experience of life before Death claimed him. And because Death robbed him of that experience Death robbed us of a rare interpretation of that special type of Love.

But of all these other types which I have mentioned we have a clear expression in the slender volume of poems that he left us as our heritage from his estate. And, since we have already read one beautiful expression of this love for his country in the opening paragraphs of this chapter, we will add here another stanza of that n.o.ble expression of his love for old England.

"And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

What a voice for the times! What a voice for America! Would that some American Brooke might arise to sing this same deep song.

A GOSPEL OF THE G.o.dS

Rupert Brooke had a wide range of interests as indeed any great Lover of Life and living must have. He expressed the hopelessness of the heathen G.o.ds in a poem which he called "On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotomus-G.o.ddess" in lines that fairly sparkle with the electricity of destruction and sarcasm:

"She was wrinkled and huge and hideous? She was our Mother.

She was l.u.s.tful and lewd?--but a G.o.d; we had none other.

In the day She was hidden and dumb, but at nightfall moaned in the shade; We shuddered and gave Her Her will in the darkness; we were afraid.

(The People without)

"She sent us pain, And we bowed before Her; She smiled again And bade us adore Her.

She solaced our woe And soothed our sighing; And what shall we do Now G.o.d is dying?"

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

And so it was that with the deepest sense of understanding, with the deepest sympathy, without intolerance Brooke, in this one verse sets the Heathen G.o.ds where they belong and sets us where we belong in our relations to those who wors.h.i.+p these G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. It is all they have. We have no right to sneer and scorn until we are able to give them better. These poor Egyptians knew no other G.o.d. They said plaintively "but a G.o.d; we have none other"; and "And what shall we do now G.o.d is dying?" The crime of destroying faith in a lesser G.o.d until one has seen and can make seeable the real G.o.d is the greatest crime of civilization. And to this writer's way of thinking there is no greater sin than that of Intolerance; a sin to which a certain portion of the inst.i.tutionalized church is p.r.o.ne. Noyes shot the fist of indignation at this type of intolerance straight from a manly shoulder when he said:

"How foolish, then, you will agree Are those who think that all must see The world alike, or those who scorn Another who, perchance, was born Where in a different dream from theirs What they called Sin to him were prayers?"

The Collected Poems of Alfred Noyes.

Brooke saw the same thing and had great tolerance for those who wors.h.i.+pped the "unknown G.o.ds"; wors.h.i.+pped the best they knew, although it were a feeble wors.h.i.+p. He understood their outcry that they knew not what to do, now that their G.o.d was dying:

"She was so strong; But death is stronger.

She ruled us long; But time is longer.

She solaced our woe And soothed our sighing; And what shall we do Now G.o.d is dying?"

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

THE GOSPEL OF ONE G.o.d

Then sweeping upward, although one must admit, with groping, reaching eagerness, this young poet tried to find, and at last did find, the one G.o.d. He mentions this G.o.d that he found more than any other one thing about which he wrote, so far as I can find. In one slender volume are more than a dozen striking references. Take for example the last fifteen lines of "The Song of the Pilgrims":

"O Thou, G.o.d of all long desirous roaming, Our hearts are sick of fruitless homing, And crying after lost desire.

Hearten us onward! as with fire Consuming dreams of other bliss.

The best Thou givest, giving this Sufficient thing--to travel still Over the plain, beyond the hill, Unhesitating through the shade, Amid the silence unafraid, Till, at some hidden turn, one sees Against the black and muttering trees Thine altar, wonderfully white, Among the Forests of the Night."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

Or again, from "Ambarvalia":

"But laughing and half-way up to heaven, With wind and hill and star, I yet shall keep before I sleep, Your Ambarvalia."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

Immortality, which goes hand in hand with the G.o.d of immortality, the G.o.d of the "Everlasting Arms," is voiced in "Dining-Room Tea," a poem addressed to one whom he loved:

"For suddenly, and other whence, I looked on your magnificence.

I saw the stillness and the light, And you, august, immortal, white, Holy and strange; and every glint, Posture and jest and thought and tint Freed from the mask of transiency, Triumphant in eternity, Immote, immortal."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

Then, speaking of the war and peace with great yearning and great faith, the young poet cried a new glory in what he calls "G.o.d's Hour" in a poem on "Peace":

"Now, G.o.d be thanked Who has matched us with His hour, And caught our youth and wakened us from sleeping, With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

And who has not felt this, but has not been able to thus express it?

And who has not seen that somehow, strangely, mysteriously, wondrously, the youth not only of England, but of America has leaped to "G.o.d's Hour," as Brooke calls this war; leaped from play, and from listlessness in spiritual things; leaped from indifference to things of the eternities; leaped to a magnificent heroism, selflessness, sacrifice, brotherhood; leaped to a new and G.o.dlike n.o.bility.

To all who mourn for their dead lads comes the cheering word of Brooke, who himself paid the great debt of love. It comes out of a poem called "Safety." Read it, you who mourn, and be comforted:

"Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest He who has found our hid security, a.s.sured in the dark tides of the world that rest, And hear our word, 'Who is so safe as we?'

'We have found safety with all things undying!'"

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

"We have found safety with all things undying." Brooke heard G.o.d's word as did the prophet of old crying, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord," and this sonnet comes as a personal message to mourning mother and father in America. As they listen they hear the voices of those they loved crying: "Who is so safe as we? We have found safety with all things undying." Thank G.o.d that this poet, though young, lived long enough, and saw enough of war and death to give this heartening word to a world which weeps and wearies with war and woe and want! Thus in this new immortality we shall

"Learn all we lacked before; hear, know and say What this tumultuous body now denies: And feel, who have laid our groping hands away; And see, no longer blinded by our eyes."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.