And
so through Saul Kane we see John Masefield and have an explanation of
that subtle yet revolutionary change in his life and his poetry,
pregnant with illustrations that, to quote another English poet, Noyes,
"Would make the dead arise!"
VIII
ROBERT SERVICE, POET OF VIRILITY
[Footnote: The poetical selections appearing in this chapter are used
by permission, and are taken from the following works: The Spell of the
Yukon; Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, published by Barse & Hopkins, New
York; Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, published by Dodd, Mead & Co., New
York.]
A STUDY OF HIGH PEAKS AND HIGH HOPES; OF WHITE SNOWS AND WHITE LIVES;
OF SIN AND DEATH; OF HEAVEN AND GOD
A preacher once preached a sermon, and in the opening moments of this
sermon he quoted eight lines, and a layman said at the conclusion of
this sermon, "Ah, the sermon was fine, but those lines that you
quoted--they were tremendous; they gripped me!" And those lines were
from Robert Service, the poet of the Alaskan ice-peaks, of the Yukon's
turbulent blue waters, of the great silences, of the high peaks and
high hopes; of men and gold and sin and death.
And the lines that gripped the layman were:
"I've stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow
That's plumb-full of hush to the brim;
I've watched the big husky sun wallow
In crimson and gold, and grow dim;
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming
And the stars tumbled out neck and crop;
And I've thought that I surely was dreaming
With the peace o' the world piled on top.
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