"O King," the atheling said, "how the time of man
Is like to a sparrow's flight from door to door
Of a hall where men sit feasting, and fire is warm.
From cold and darkness it comes. It is safe from weather
A moment only; then into the dim and outward
Winter it flies again. Does a man speak now
A word more certain than this? Does the tale of Christ
Speak a better word? Then I bid thee follow it."
The long-haired thanes were silent in hall, and Aedwin
Stroked at his beard. He took the priest's thin hand
Into both his great ones, hairy and scarred. He bowed
For the blessing of Christ his body, clashing with mail.
The Northumbrian shields upheld an alien captain.
The body of Christ was king in the circle of spears.
And lo, I was seized, marching from Baltic forests,
Or pressing beyond the Danube, the Rhine, or the Seine.
Salty with wash of the fjords, rimy with sea-spary,
I in my great boar-helmet was seized and won
By a lean priest whose eyes were kindling with dreams
Of the blessed Rood. I was gentled with Latin hymns,
Cleansed with holy water and crowned with thorns,
And told to remember a sin I had not known.
The hammer of Thor was fallen forever, and Odin
Looked upon Asgard sadly. Twilight came
With a mild Christian splendor of bells and incense.
The Goths unbuckled the sword. The sons of the Goths
Remembered the saints in stone with arches leaping
Heavenward like my soul from the desolate earth.
But now a hammer shines in the hand of Luther
Nailing the ninety-nine theses on a door
At Wittenberg where sparks fly up. Tyndale
Burns, and Scotland's burning. A voice cries,
I tell thee, Master Ridley, this day we light
A fire, O such a fire, shall burn and never
Shall be put out. Now merry England's burning,
And I, dancing with sinful friends on the village green,
Heard voices crying out of heaven, Fly!
Fly from the wrath to come! And as I slept
I dreamed a dream of Beulah Land for which
I fought on Naseby Field, and later sailed
To a land not Beulah Land. With my father's claymore
I still fled sin to the western mountains. There
The hunting-shirts were bowed at Watauga Old Fields,
And Samuel Doak, before King's Mountain, prayed
To the ancient god of battles. Are these not blessed,
The stern lips of mountain men who pray,
Firm in search for god so many a year?
And to me Evangelist came again in the blare
Of a cornet under a canvas tent, a borrowed
Piano tinkling a washed-out music, a sweating
Choir vaguely exalting the youthful blood
Of sinners --
Brother, are you a Christian? Are you
Washed in the Blood? Oh, Brother, sinful Brother,
Come while the choir sings Number Seventy-nine
And give me your hand. God bless you, Brother. God
Bless you, young man. Will there be any stars
Any stars in my crown when at evening...
When at evening, I, a man conceived in sin,
Walked, unthoughtful of sin, I saw overhead
Vega, against the murk of space, and Mars,
A reddish bulb swung closer to this globe
By a few million miles. And Ursa Major
Hurled west against the beating of my heart
Forever, I said, the sun will rise and dawn
Will break again forever. The moon will turn
Its dry face toward the clutching earth, and men
Will walk as I have walked and ask the same
Clean question of a God that never answers...
When at evening I, a man conceived in sin,
Walked, not professing sin, I felt a cloud
Darken the windows of my brain, and death
Looked coarsely in. I said, this mortal plasm
Living by process of all centuries
Not yet has died. The seed is old as man,
Remainder and sum of many bodies, soul
Of infinite souls, an indestructible life.
Then say not, death, I shall not clench this hand
To-morrow...to-morrow I shall not see this sky.
Say not to-morrow this bright urgency
Of looks and words must pass. Oh, come away, death!
I who have no ending cannot know
What it is to end. I who have had no beginning
Know life only. Beyond, by either way,
Is God, whose answer has not come to men
But in the rumors of men - a gypsy race
Who flaunt their pride in legends of old glory
Half-forgotten, repeated as a charm
For comfort's sake when wind blows cold and death
Stands at the road's edge, a shadow beckoning Stop.
But still men dare to speak for God and shape
Their fumbling answers into a mould to keep
The quick proud spirit against the outer dread
Of spaceless terrible things. God is the mould
So many times cast off, so many times
Clay on the wheel again. For if ever the soul
Moves in its changeful dreams, the mould must break.
It is my restless soul that stirs. It is
My soul that will not be contained in the dead
Plaster that other hands have made. It is cramped
And like a child within the womb it must
Begone from that which gave it life. It rends,
It cleaves its way, and there is agony.
But if I pass you by, O House of God,
It is not now in scorn. I would not sit
In the seat of the scornful or walk in the way of sinners.
But men are greater than the house they build
Even the House of God. And the prayers of men
Are mightier than the altars where they bow
Their wounded heads in one eternal wish.
I seek the joy of life. I seek the God
Who will not tame the manliness.
Three men am I. And one with pagan blood
Startles at dawn to find no sword at his side,
No hound to answer his horn, no charger ready,
No ashen spear by the wall, no throng of men
Bearded, shining with mail, in the smoky hall,
No noise of the feasting of gods in high Asgard.
And he says in his teeth: Now who has bewildered me
A thousand years with a doctrine of strange tongues?
Who clad me in strange garments? What smooth saws
Were whispered into my ear by Eastern voices?
What were the swarthy faces, what the drug
That sank me into slumber? I am not
Of the blood of Hebrews. Who gave me over to Hebrews?
After a thousand years I have not learned
The voice of the Hebrew God or the Hebrew way.
The second man of me is Puritan,
Who learned of a godly mother the Ten Commandments
And read the Good Book through at the age of twelve,
Chapter by chapter. The hymns of country choirs
Haunt my tongue. The words of stately men
Speaking from ghostly pulpits forbid me still
From shameful things. And youthful prayers arise
Unbidden to my lips in hours of dread.
Woman is sacred still, and wine is a mocker,
The words of God are written in the Book
Which I will keep beloved though earth may speak
A different language unto those who read her.
The third man was born to weigh the sun
And love the clean cool sureties of matter.
Whatever God is, this man does not guess.
He is content to know what all things do
Or can be made to do. How little is man,
He thinks, reckoning the life of stars, and yet
How easily things beneath the stars may serve
This little man's great will. No question shows
The cause behind a cause, for ever there are
Unmeasured causes still. He had rather walk
The observant friend of the world as it looks to be,
And move with it among all active things,
Using them all, or maybe used by them.
And if he die - why, many men have died!
And what is God? Well, what He is, He is =
Some Great Electron, not yet trapped ore seen,
But there or not, whatever our debates.
In elder days than these men saw the gods.
Red-bearded Thor in a goat-pulled chariot came
To Thialfi's hut. Men sat at meat with the god,
Tearing the goat-flesh, jesting over the mead
Till the rafters rang and the gold-haired maidens laughed.
And once on a misty dawn by a norther ford
A ferryman answered a stranger's call, received
Into his boat an old man, one-eyed, gray-cloaked.
The shore was touched. And then the charmed man saw
the gnarled figure straighten and tower. Fog
Swirled round the breast of Odin. The golden voice
Spoke farewell to a man who sat with oars
Poised in a breathless trance. And on that spot
He raised a cairn of stones and slew a horse,
Sprinkling the blood while solemn runes were chanted.
Evangelist, you who called to me on the curb
And waved an inviting hand toward the vacant seat
Beside you in the car, hear this my question:
How can three alien men be reconciled
In one warm mind that like the sparrow flies
In a great hall lit for feasts and the laughter of men,
And would be glad before it goes forever
Out of the opening door? Oh, give me a scroll
Written anew, for where I pass are lions
Walking chainless and devils that will not flee.
The mould breaks, and God must arise again.
And you, my known or unknown friend, believe
that my notion of God is less than my notion of you,
For somehow man encloses the only God
With whom I dare be intimate. I have heard
The brave laughter of men who were fated to die
And cannot think that God surpasses them
In finite beauty - and my world is finite.
And you, beloved, it is no April fire
That brings my lips to yours again. It is
No sudden springtime burning in the veins
That soon must slacken. This is the deepest flame
Ever given to man, the love of life
Summed up in you, for what we have learned of God
Is not yet more mysterious, is not
More powerful a life than this we share,
Companions, lovers, in one destiny.
-Donald Grady Davidson, The Breaking Mould,
from The Tall Men collection of poems, 1927
