Brooke saw the same thing and had great tolerance for those who
worshipped the "unknown gods"; worshipped the best they knew, although
it were a feeble worship. He understood their outcry that they knew not
what to do, now that their god 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 God is dying?"
The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.
THE GOSPEL OF ONE GOD
Then sweeping upward, although one must admit, with groping, reaching
eagerness, this young poet tried to find, and at last did find, the one
God. He mentions this God 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,
God 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.
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