I have never found a poem which more truly pictures the Christ and how
he comes to human beings than this one of Markham's. Conrad the cobbler
had a dream, when he had grown old, that the Master would come "His
guest to be." He arose at dawn on that day of great expectations,
decorated his simple shop with boughs of green and waited:
"His friends went home; and his face grew still
As he watched for the shadow across the sill;
He lived all the moments o'er and o'er,
When the Lord should enter the lowly door--
The knock, the call, the latch pulled up,
The lighted face, the offered cup.
He would wash the feet where the spikes had been;
He would kiss the hands where the nails went in;
And then at last he would sit with him
And break the bread as the day grew dim."
The Shoes of Happiness.
But the Master did not come. Instead came a beggar and the cobbler gave
him shoes; instead came an old crone with a heavy load of faggots. He
gave her a lift with her load and some of the food that he had prepared
for the Christ when he should come. Finally a little child came, crying
along the streets, lost. He pitied the child and left his shop to take
it to its mother; such was his great heart of love. He hurried back
that he might not miss the Great Guest when he came. But the Great
Guest did not come. As the evening came and the shadows were falling
through the window of his 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 hate, O wasteful friend:
Put hate away until the ages end.
Have you an ancient wound? Forget the wrong.
Out in my West, a forest loud with song
Towers high and green over a field of snow,
Over a glacier buried far below."
The Shoes of Happiness.
And if all the world would learn the meaning of this great phrase,
"There is no time for hate," the world would happier be. Good script
for the journey? The best there is, is to know "There is no time for
hate."