Giant Hours With Poet Preachers | Page 5

shop, more and more the truth, with all its weight of sadness, bore in upon him, that the dream was not to come true; that he had made a mistake; that Christ was not to come to his humble shop. His heart was broken and he cried out in his disappointment:
"Why is it, Lord, that your feet delay? Did you forget that this was the day?"
The Shoes of Happiness.
Then what sweeter scene in all the lines of the poetry of the world than this that follows? Where is Christ more wonderfully and simply summed up; his spirit of love, and care?
"Then soft in the silence a voice he heard: 'Lift up your heart, for I kept my word. Three times I came to your friendly door; Three times my shadow was on your floor. I was the beggar with bruised feet; I was the woman you gave to eat; I was the child on the homeless street!'"
The Shoes of Happiness.
One is reminded here of Masefield's "The Everlasting Mercy," wherein he speaks as Markham speaks about the child:
"And he who gives a child a treat Makes joy-bells ring in Heaven's street; And he who gives a child a home Builds palaces in Kingdom Come; And she who gives a baby birth Brings Saviour Christ again to earth."
The Shoes of Happiness.
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of one of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," another great-hearted Poet once said; and these words Markham, in "How the Great Guest Came," has made real.
"SCRIPT FOR THE JOURNEY"
"Script for the Journey" is all that it claims to be. Markham is not doing what Lindsay did. Lindsay started out on a long journey with only his poems for money. He meant to make his way buying his food with a verse. And he did that very thing. But Markham had a different idea, an idea that all of us need script for that larger journey, script that is not money and script that does not buy mere material food, but food for the soul. He means it to be script that will help us along the hard way. And he who has this script is rich indeed, in his inner life.
"THE PLACE OF PEACE"
One would pay much for peace at any time, but especially when one on the journey of life is wearied unto death with sin, and bickering, and trouble and hurt and pain. Life holds so much heartache and heartbreak. Markham has herein the answer:
"At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky, And flinging the clouds and the towers by, Is a place of central calm; So here in the roar of mortal things, I have a place where my spirit sings, In the hollow of God's palm."
The Shoes of Happiness.
And when we learn to put our business ventures there as Abbey has his Sir Galahad do in the Vigil panel of "The Search for the Holy Grail," in Boston Library; and when we have learned to put our homes, and our children, and our souls "In the hollow of God's palm," there will be peace on the journey of life. Yes, that is good script.
"ANCHORED TO THE INFINITE"
What a lesson the poet brings us from the great swinging bridge at Niagara, as he tells of the tiny thread that was flown from a kite from shore to shore; and then a larger string, and then a heavy cord, and then a rope, and finally the great cable, and the mighty bridge. And this he applies to life!
"So we may send our little timid thought Across the void out to God's reaching hands--Send out our love and faith to thread the deep-- Thought after thought until the little cord Has greatened to a chain no chance can break, And--we are anchored to the Infinite."
The Shoes of Happiness.
Who does not need to know how simple a thing will lead to infinite anchorage? Who does not need to know that just the tiny threads of love and faith will draw greater cords and greater, stronger ropes until at last the chasm between man and God on the journey is bridged, and we may be anchored to him forever. This indeed is good script for the journey of life Godward.
"THERE IS NO TIME FOR HATE"
The world is full of hate these days. War-mad Germany produced "The Hymn of Hate," the lowest song that ever was written in the history of the world. It seems impossible that a censorship so strict could ever let such a mass of mire out to the world. But when one reads this Markham poem, he somehow feels that life is so big, and yet so brief, that even in war we are all brother-men and, as the opening lines say,
"There is no time for