JOHN MASEFIELD, POET FOR THE PULPIT
[Footnote: The poetical selections appearing in this chapter are used
by permission, and are taken from the following works: The Everlasting
Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street, Salt Water Poems and Ballads,
and Good Friday, published by The Macmillan Company, New York.]
To climb is to achieve. We like to see men achieve; and the harder that
achievement is, the more we thrill to it. For that reason we all have a
hope to climb a Shasta, or a Whitney, or a Hood to its whitest peak,
and glory in the achievement. And because of this human delight in the
climb we thrill to see a man climb out of sin, or out of difficulty, or
out of defeat to triumph.
From "bar-boy" to poet is a great achievement, a great climb, or leap,
or lift, whichever figure you may prefer, but that is exactly what
John Masefield did.
Perhaps Hutton's figure may describe it better--"The Leap to God." At
least ten years ago John Masefield, a wanderer on the face of the
earth, found himself in New York city without friends and without
means, and it was not to him an unusual thing to accept the position of
"bar-boy" in a New York saloon. This particular profession has within
its scope the duties of wiping the beer bottles, sweeping the floor,
and other menial tasks.
And now John Masefield has within recent months come to New York city
to be the lauded and feted. Newspaper reporters met him as his boat
landed, eager for his every word; Carnegie Hall was crowded to hear him
read from his own poetry; and his journey across the country was just a
great triumph from New York to San Francisco.
Something had happened in those ten years. This man had achieved. This
poet had climbed to God. This man had experienced the "Soul's Leap to
God." He had found that Man of all men who once said, "If I be lifted
up, I will draw all men unto me." He always lifts men out of nothing
into the glory of the greatest achievement. Yes, something had happened
in those ten years.
And the things that had happened in those ten years are perfectly
apparent in his writings if one follow them from the beginning to the
end. And the things that had happened I shall trace through this poet's
writings from the first, boyhood verses of "Salt Water Ballads" to
"Good Friday"; and therein lies the secret; and incidentally therein
lies some of the most thrilling human touches, vivid illustrations for
the preacher; some of the most intensely interesting religious
experiences that any biography ever revealed consciously or
unconsciously.