From childhood to
Godhood has the poet come, and we have come with him. It has been
a triumphant journey upward. But we have not been afraid. Even the
blinding light of God's face has not made us tremble. We have
learned to know him through this climb upward and upward to his throne.
At first it was uncertain. The poet had to challenge us to one great
end in "The Paradox":
"But one thing is needful; and ye shall be true
To yourself and the goal and the God that ye seek;
Yea, the day and the night shall requite it to you
If ye love one another, if your love be not weak!"
Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.
For he knew the heart hunger for God 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 God's finger
in the sky"; and an admonition to the preacher: "Thou art God's
minister, not God's oracle!"
Nor did he forget that man, in his search for God, 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
_God!_"
Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.
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