Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SAM PERRY (A GENIUS UNRECORDED), by JOHN LAURENCE RENTOUL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SAM PERRY (A GENIUS UNRECORDED), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I stood by a grave and white grave-stone
Last Line: "and tell what you do, and where you are!"
Alternate Author Name(s): Gage, Gervais
Subject(s): Cemeteries; Death; Memory; Science; Youth; Graveyards; Dead, The; Scientists


I STOOD by a grave, and a white grave-stone—
Simple the place like your simple self;
The wind of the bright day made no moan,
The flowers blew free round the plinth and shelf.

The birds sang sweet, as in years agone
Or ever I wandered across the sea;
The same air breathed and the same sun shone,
And my youth unchanged came back to me.

I lived again in the days gone by
When, lads on our way to the village school,
We watched for your glance and your swift reply,
As, fit to his folly, you answered the fool.

We forgot the click of the marbles' ring,
And the flick and spin of the whirring top,
To laugh at the quips your wit would fling
At the oaf, and the factor, and the fop:

At the landlord, grinding the face of the poor
In the mill of his ruthless high rack-rent,
Or driving him forth from his fathers' door
When he voted true, or his strength was spent:

At the rector backing the reign of greed
On its crumbling throne of law and power,
And deaf to the sweet diviner creed
Of the Christ, and the Man, and the People's hour:

At the tipsy sergeant, and fool recruit
That sold his soul for the shilling-fee
And marched, drink-blind, to the lust and loot
Of the hell called "Glory" beyond the sea.

You flung your wit, as you flung your paint,
At seeming random, but subtle with plan;
Through your humour droll and your proverb quaint
Pulsed a heart of comradeship with Man:

With the woes and the yearning and the doubt,
And the dreams of Freedom in every land,
The passion for search and for "finding out"
Which the Priests and the Kings may not withstand:

And the small light growing to more and more,
As the small child grows to the stature of man;
And love for all Earth's secret lore:
Ho! nor caste can bar it nor custom ban!

You lighted the gloom of the darkened street,
You built your boat with its panting steam
On the river's bend, and its errands fleet
Seemed to the crowd as a magic dream.

And, turning the blunt Folk-speech you knew
To sweet and to simple unison,
The legends of the Past you drew
From the glen and the rath, and you made them one:—

One story of the life of Man
And of the baffling blows of Fate,
Of Love, and of evil Fortune's ban,
And of heart and hearth made desolate.

Had you lived in the new and kindlier day,—
Lore's gates flung wide to the seeker's soul,—
Your brow had worn Fame's twisted bay,
And your name been writ on the brazen scroll!

Your guess at the mystic "How?" of Light
And the secret "Why?" of Force's thrill
Might have fixed your flag on the soaring height
Of the great crowned kings of ken and skill.

But you made the village and sweet holm-stream
To know a Man's magnetic power;
And the Man's soul searched, and he dreamed his dream,
And died: not finding the place and the hour!

In the Auld Licht Kirk, when the sermons drear
Were your rack and your purgatorial time,
The song of the birds and the brooklets clear
With the beat of your heart made joyous chime,

Till the pulpit-banger, above your head,
Went torturing Scripture to prove it plain
That the Father of Christ on the Cross that bled
Was a tyrant Will—Man's free-will vain—

And "elected some" to a future bliss
And to singing psalms to a harp of gold:
O Sam, you shuddered and yawned at this,
And you blew your nose with a sudden cold!

For, the week before, you had steered your boat
O'er the shimmering waters of Lag-a-Náyle;
And you kenned God's will in the lark's glad note,
In the streams that sing and the ships that sail:

In the light that broke down Ullin's dell
Through the trees' sweet grace and the river's glow,
In the chaunt of Anya's wizard well
As it leapt to the rippling Aghavoe:

In the small bird Christ saw flit in the air,
And the "lily" that couched by the common way,
And the grass kept safe in the Father's care,
Not carked by the dread of the coming day.

For the God, you said, writ clear in the Christ
Was the Love that yearns through the Mother's pang;
And for this, through the ages, sacrificed
The patriot died and the poet sang.

And for this the unchurched Samaritan
Stooped down to the naked and wounded Jew;
And the priest and the Church, with scornful scan,
Passed by: and the pence and the thanks were few:

And the curses smote, with a war-rage fell,
On the sister's plea and the prophet's cry;
And the mob, lust-blinded with hate from Hell,
Cried:—"Scourge!"—and "Away!"—and "Crucify!"

But the great God stooped through the ages slow,
Through Sorrow and Love's great splendid loss;
And, at last,—God loved the whole world so,—
His love hung gibbeted on a Cross!

One tale lives yet in my inmost heart,—
I can see your face as you told it me;
At its echoes still the quick tears start
To my eyes, in the lands beyond the sea.

For your Mother died: and, a lonely bairn,
You went to your grandsire's lonesome place;
His voice was harsh and his temper stern,
His creed was "the law" drained dry of grace.

On the Sabbath day, in the winter gloom,
He sat and read by the dull peat fire;
And the hard white walls of the hard bare room
Chilled the young hope of your heart's desire.

But, when he dozed, you thought to creep,
Mouse-quiet, forth to the life and play;
Then, vibrant, rang his doom-notes deep,—
"Sit down, and read: 'tis the Sabbath-day!"

"In that fell loveless time," you said,
"Two comrades saved me from despair:—
Great Bunyan's tale, and—as I read—
My Mother's sweet face blending there.

"Dear Great-heart Bunyan, 'tinker' named
By Caste, but the Child's Seer crowned by God,
By countless gladsome souls acclaimed
Their shield from a dour Creed's threat and rod!—

"Refracting the hard cold beam of Truth
To wondrous tints in Fancy's prism,
The rivers and birds and a Heaven of ruth,
Not the Hebrew Kings and the Catechism!—

"And, beyond, lay the meadows of lilies sweet,
And the river of singing with fruit-trees fair,
And hills with the orchards at their feet,
And paths for heroes to climb and dare!

"My soul would have died except for thee—
In that blank and pitiless atmosphere—
And the Christ-tales, read too scantily
In the bare cold Church on the Sabbaths drear.

"So I read again till I fell asleep,
By the smouldering peat and the four bare walls;
And I dreamt myself 'mid the chasms so deep,
And the clanking chains and the dark pitfalls!

"And Apollyon strode across the way;
But the vision changed: I was knocking now
At a gate far fairer than the day,
Where an Angel stood with crown on brow.

"And the great gate oped: through the glory riven
I saw one beauteous yearning face;
'My Mother!'—I cried: then the clouds were driven
O'er the glow, and my dream had changed its place.

"A hard door clashed: by a dull peat fire
I was sitting now, 'mid four bare walls;
And, lo, in his chair my lank grandsire!
How the sight even now my heart appals!—

"With his hard dry cough, as he cleared his throat;
Cross-legged he sat, as he peered to see,
While his hooked fore-finger traced the 'Note'
Of 'Matthew Henry' on his knee.

"'Yes, this is Heaven!'—he answered sharp
To my blank appeal,—'but to wave the paulm
Ye're no' yet fit, nor to twang the harp;
Sit still! let us sing the Second Psaulm!'

"'Dear God,' I cried, 'that I might go
From out this Heaven, and find some place
Where I could work and search and know,
And see again my Mother's face!

"'That I might strive with my earnest hands,
And help some people poor and lost,
And reach some wider, freer lands
Where hills are climbed and seas are crost;

"'And where the toil of back and knee
And eye, through eager nights and days,
Might seem God's noblest litany,
Received by Thee for prayer and praise;

"'And find the secret of the Sun,
And of the stars, and the shining sky;
And why, when God loves every one,
Christ and my Mother had to die:

"'And why young Kate for her trust in Ned,
Was banned from home, "outside the pale,"
Deserted,—her wee baby dead,—
They hanged her at the dreadful gaol!

"'She used to lift and to carry me
Across the brook, with a laugh and a song,
And I promised, "Kate, I'll marry thee—
When I am a man and rich and strong!"

"'Oh, I see her white feet flash in the stream,
And her bright face glow with an angel's joy;
Perhaps, dear God, that too is a dream,
For the pain's too sore for a lonesome boy!

"'But the fountains leap and the rivers sing,
And I know, by the fields and the sky and the sun,
By the Autumn corn and the joy of Spring,
That God means good to every one!'

"And then I awoke: God's silent hand
Had widened the Earth and the sky and air;
And I was an orphan alone in the land,
And he sat dead, in his straight-backed chair!"

'Twas a daring thing in the village small
To speak those voices of the soul,
Of the one, and the many, and the All,
Of the eyes that search, and the stars that roll!

And you paid your price: and you went your way:
And you feared no man: and you cursed no foe:
'Twas prize enough, at the close of day,
Your wife's glad face, and her eyes aglow!—

And the primal Eden-curse made sweet,
The tragic, thorny, weird Life-plan,—
Woman's and God's love grown complete
In the sorrow and quest and toil of Man!

So I stood by your grave: and my heart cried out—
But no answer came from near or far—
"O Sam, could you speak and solve the doubt,
And tell what you do, and where you are!"





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