..."
* * * * *
"Dare you re-kindle then,
One faith for faithless men,
And say you found, on that dark road you trod,
In the beginning, _God_?"
Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.
[Illustration: 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 God." 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.
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