She was lustful and lewd?--but a God; 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 God 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 gods where they belong and sets us where we belong in our
relations to those who worship these gods and goddesses. 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 God. They said
plaintively "but a God; we have none other"; and "And what shall we do
now God is dying?" The crime of destroying faith in a lesser god until
one has seen and can make seeable the real God 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
institutionalized church is prone. 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.
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