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THE EVERLASTING MERCY

By John Masefield

(Back to part 2)

Lord, give to men who are old and rougher

The things that little children suffer,

And let keep bright and undefiled

The young years of the little child.

I pat his head at edge of street

And gi'm my second pear to eat.

Right under lamp I pat his head,

"I'll stay till mother come," I said,

And stay I did, and joked and talked,

And shoppers wondered as they walked,

"There's that Saul Kane, the drunken blaggard,

Talking to little Jimmy Jaggard.

The drunken blaggard reeks of drink."

"Whatever will his mother think?"

"Wherever has his mother gone?

Nip round to Mrs. Jaggard's, John,

And say her Jimmy's out again,

In Market-place with boozer Kane."

"When he come out to-day he staggered.

O, Jimmy Jaggard, Jimmy Jaggard."

"His mother's gone inside to bargain,

Run in and tell her , Polly Margin,

And tell her poacher Kane is tipsy

And selling Jimmy to a gipsy."

"Run in to Mrs. Jaggard, Ellen,

Or else, dear knows, there'll be no tellin',

And don't dare leave yer till you've fount her,

You'll find her at the linen counter."

I told a tale, to Jim's delight

Of where the tom-cats go by night,

And how when moonlight came they went

Among the chimneys black and bent,

From roof to roof, from house to house,

With little baskets full of mouse

All red and white, both joint and chnop

Like meat out of a butcher's shop;

Then all along the wall they creep

And everyone is fast asleep,

And honey-hunting moths go by,

And by the bread-batch crickets cry;

Then on they hurry, never waiting

To lawyer's backyard cellar grating

where Jaggard's cat, with clever paw,'

Unhooks a broke-brick's secret door;

Then down into the cellar black,

Across the wood slug's slimy track,

Into an old cask's quiet hollow,

Where they've got seats for what's to follow;

Then each tom-cats light little candles,

And O, the stories and the scandals,

And O, the songs and Christmas carols,

And O, the milk from little barrels.

They light a fire fit for roasting

(And how good mouse-meat smells when toasting),

Then down they sit to merry feast

While moon goes west and sun comes east.

Sometimes they make so merry there

Old lawyer comes to head of stair

To 'fend with fist and poker took firm

His parchments channeled by the bookworm,

And all his deeds, and all his packs

Of withered ink and sealing wax;

And there he stands, with candle raised,

And listens like a man amazed,

Or like ghost a man stands dumb at,

He says, "Hush! Hush! I'm sure there's summat."

He hears outside the brown owl call,

He hears the death-tick tap the wall,

the gnawing of the wainscot mouse,

The creaking ujp and down the house,

The unhooked window's hinges ranging,

The sounds that say the wind is changing.

At last he turns and shakes his head,

"It's nothing. I'll go back to bed."

And just then Mrs. Jaggard came

To view and end her Jimmy's shame.

She made on rush and gi'm a bat

And shook him like a dog a rat.

"I can't turn round but what you're straying.

I'll give you tales and gipsy playing.

I'll give you wand'ring off like this

And listening to whatever 'tis,

You'll laugh the little side of the can,

You'll have the whip for his, my man;

And not a bite of meat nor bread

You'll touch before you go to bed.

Some day you'll break your mother's heart,

After God knows she done her part,

Working her arms off day and night

Trying to keep your collars white.

Look at your face, too, in the street.

What dirty filth've you found to eat?

Now don't you blubber here, boy, or

I'll give you sum't to blubber for."

She snatched him off from where we stand

And knocked the pear-core from his hand,

and looked at me, "You Devil's limb,

How dare you talk to Jaggard's Jim;

You drunken, poaching, boozing brute, you,

If Jaggard was a man, he'd shoot you."

She glared all this, but didn't speak,

she gasped, white hollows in her cheek;

Jimmy was writhing, screaming wild,

The shoppers thought I'd killed the child.

I had to speak, so I begun.

"You oughtn't beat your little son;

He did no harm, but seeing him there

I talked to him and gi'm a pear;

I'm sure the poor child meant no wrong,

It's all my fault he stayed so long,

He'd not have stayed, mum, I'll be bound

If I'd not chanced to come around.

It's all my fault he stayed, not his.

I kept him here, that's how it is."

"Oh!" And how dare you, then?" says she,

How dare yo tempt my boy from me?

How dare you do't, you drunken swine,

Is he your child or is he mine?

A drunken sot they've had the beak to,

Has got his dirty whores to speak to,

His dirty mates with home he drink,

Not little children, one would think.

"Look on him, there," she says, "Look on him

And smell the stinking gin upon him,

The lowest sot, the drunknest liar,

The dirtiest dog in all the shire:

Nice friends for any woman's son

After ten years, and all she's done.

"For I've had eight, and buried five,

And only three are left alive.

I've given them all we could afford.

I've taught them all to fear the Lord.

They've had the best we had to give,

The only three the Lord let live.

"For Minnie whom I love the worst

Died mad in childbirth with her first.

And John and Mary died of measles,

And Rob was drowned at the Teasels.

And little Nan, dear little sweet,

A cart run over in the street;

Her little shift was all one stain,

I prayed God put her out of pain.

And all the rest are gone or going

The road to hell, and there's no knowing

For all I've done and all I've made them

I'd better not have overlaid them.

For Susan went the ways of shame

The time the 'till'ry regiment came,

And t'have her child without a father

I think I'd have her buried father.

And Dicky boozes, God forgimme,

And now't's to be the same with Jimmy.

And all I've done and all I've bore

Has made a drunkard and a whore,,

A bastard boy who wasn't meant,

And Jimmy gwine where Dicky went;

For Dick began the self-same way

And my old hairs are going gray,

And my poor man's a withered knee,

And all the burden falls on me.

"I've washed eight little children's limbs,

I've taught eight little souls their hymns,

I've risen sick and lain down pinched

And borne it all and never flinched;

But to see him, the town's disgrace,

With God's commandments broke in's face,

Who never worked, not he, nor earned,

Nor will do till the seas are burned,

Who never did since he was whole

A hand's turn for a human soul,

But poached and stole and gone with women,

And swilled down gin enough to swim in,

To see him only lift a finger

To make my little Jimmy linger.

In spite of all his mother's prayers,

And all her ten long years of cares,

and all her broken spirit's cry

That drunkard's finger puts them by,

And Jimmy turns. And now I see

That just as Dick was, Jim will be,

And all my life will have been in vain.

I might have spared myself the pain,

And done the world a blessed riddance

If I'd a drowned 'em all like kittens.

And he the sot, so strong and proud,

Who'd make white shirts of a mother's shroud,

He laughs now, it's a joke to him,

Though it's the gates of hell for Jim.

"I've had my heart burnt out like coal,

And drops of blood wrung from my soul

Day in, day out, in pain and tears,

For five and twenty wretched years;

And he, he's ate the fat and sweet,

And loafed and spat at top of street,

And drunk and leched from day till morrow,

And never known a moment's sorrow.

He come out drunk from th'inn to look

the day my little Nan was took;

He sat there drinking, glad and gay,

The night my girl was led astray;

He praised my Dick for singing well,

The night Dick took the road to hell;

And when my corpse goes stiff and blind,

Leaving four helpless souls behind,

He will be there still, drunk and strong.

It do seem hard. It do seem wring.

But "Woe to him by whom the offense,"

Says our Lord Jesus' Testaments.

Whatever seems, God doth not slumber

Though he lets pass times without number.

He'll come with trump to call his own,

And t his world's way'll be overthrown.

He'll come with glory and with fire

To cast great darkness on the liar,

To burn the drunkard and the treacher,

And do his judgment on the lecher,

To glorify the spirit's faces

Of those whose ways were stony places

Who chose with Ruth the better part;

O Lord, i see Thee as Thou are,

O God, the fiery, four-edged sword,

The thunder of the wrath outpoured,

The fiery four-faced creatures burning,

And all the four-faced wheels all turning,

Coming with trump and fiery saint.

Jim, take me home, I'm turning faint."

They went, and some cried, "Good old sod."

"She put it to him straight, by God."

Summat, whe was, or looked, or said,

Went home and made me hang my head.

I slunk away into the night

Knowing deep down that she was right.

I'd often hear[d] religious ranters,

And put them down as windy canters,

But this old mother made me see

the harm I done by being me.

Being both strong and given to sin

I 'stracted weaker vessels in.

So back to bar to get more drink,

I didn't dare begin to think,

And there were drinks and drunken singing,

As though this life were dice for flinging;

Dice to be flung, and nothing furder,

And Christ's blood just another murder.

"Come on, drinks round, salue, drink hearty,

Now, Jane, the punch-bowl for the party.

If any here won't drink with me

I'll knock his bloody eyes out. See?

Come on, cigars round, rum for mine,

Sing us a smutty song, some swine."

But though the drinks and songs went round

That thought remained, it was not drowned.

And when I'd rise to get a light

I'd think, "What's come to me tonight?"

There's always crowds when drinks are standing.

The house doors slammed along the landing,

The rising wind was gusty yet,

And those who cam in late were wet;

And all my body's nerves were snappin'

With sense of summat 'bout to happen,

And music seemed to come and go

And seven lights danced in a row.

There used be a custom then,

Miss Bourne, the Friend, went round at ten

To all the pubs in all the place,

To bring the drunkards' souls to grace;

Some sulked, of course, and some were stirred,

But none give her a dirty word.

A tall pale woman, grey and bent,

Folk said of her that she was sent

She wore Friend's clothes, and women smiled,

But she'd a heart just like a child.

She come to us near closing time

when we were at some smutty rhyme,

And I was mad, and ripe for fun;

I wouldn't a minded what I done.

So when she come so prim and grey

I pound the bar and sing, "Hooray,

Here's Quaker come to bless and kiss us,

Come, have a gin and bitters, missus,

Or may be Quaker girls so prim

Would rather start a bloody hymn.

Now Dick, oblige. A hymn, you swine,

Pipe up the 'Officer of the Line,'

A song to make one's belly ache,

Or 'Nell and Roger at the Wake,'

Or that sweet song, the talk in town,

'The lady fair and Abel Brown.'

'O, who's that knocking at the door,'

Miss Bourne'll play the music score."

The men stood dumb as cattle are,

They grinned, but thought I'd gone too far,

There come a hush and no one break it,

They wondered how Miss Bourne would take it.

She up to me with black eyes wide,

She looked as though her spirit cried;

She took my tumbler from the bar

Beside where all the matches are

And poured it out upon the floor dust,

Among the fag-ends, spit and saw-dust.

"Saul Kane," she said, "when next you drink,

Do me the gentleness to think

That every drop of drink accursed

Makes Christ within you die of thirst,

That every dirty word you say

Is one more flint upon his way,

Another thorn about His head,

Another mock by where He tread,

Another nail, another cross.

All that you are is that Christ's loss."

The clock run down and struck a chime

And Mrs. Si said, "Closing time."

The wet was pelting on the pane

And something broke inside my brain,

I heard the rain drip from the gutters

And Silas putting up the shutters,

While one by one the drinkers went;

I got a glimpse of what it meant,

How she and I had stood before

In some old town by some old door

Waiting intent while someone knocked

Before the door for ever locked;

She was so white that I was scared,

A gas jet, turned the wrong way, flared,

And Silas snapped the bars in place.

Miss Bourne stood white and searched my face.

When Silas done, with ends of tunes

He 'gan a gathering the spittoons,

His wife primmed lips and took the till.

Miss Bourne stood still and I stood still.

Miss Bourne stood still and I stood still,

And "Tick. Slow. Tick. Slow" went the clock.

She said, "He waits until you knock."

She turned at that and went out swift,

Si grinned and winked, his missus sniffed.

I heard her clang the Lion door,

I marked a drink-drop roll to floor;

It took up scraps of sawdust, furry,

And crinkled on, a half inch, blurry;

A drop from my last glass of gin;

And someone waiting to come in,

A hand upon the door latch gropen

Knocking the man inside to open.

I know the very words I said,

They bayed like bloodhounds in my head.

"The water's going out to sea

And there's a great moon calling me;

But there's a great sun calls the moon,

And all God's bells will carol soon

For joy and glory and delight

Of someone coming home to-night."

Out into darkness, out to night,

My flaring heart gave plenty light,

So wild it was there was no knowing

Whether the clouds or stars were blowing;

Blown chimney pots and folk blown blind,

And puddles glimmering in my mind,

And chinking glass from windows banging,

And inn signs swung like people hanging,

And in my heart the drink unpriced,

The burning cataracts of Christ.

I did not think, I did not strive,

The deep peace burnt my me alive;

The bolted door had broken in,

I knew that I had done with sin.

I knew that Christ had given me birth

To brother all the souls on earth,

And every bird and every beast

Should share the crumbs broke at the feast.

O glory of the lighted mind.

How dead I'd been, how dumb, how blind.

The station brook, to my new eyes,

Was babbling out of Paradise,

The waters rushing from the rain

Were singing Christ has risen again.

I thought all earthly creatures knelt

From rapture of the joy I felt.

The narrow station-wall's brick ledge,

The wild hop withering in the hedge,

The lights in huntsmans' upper storey

Were parts of an eternal glory,

Were God's eternal garden flowers.

I stood in bliss at this for hours.

O glory of the lighted soul.

The dawn came up on Bradlow Knoll,

The dawn with glittering on the grasses,

The dawn which pass and never passes.

"It's dawn," I said, "And chimney's smoking,

And all the blessed fields are soaking.'

It's dawn, and there's an engine shunting;

And hounds, for huntsman's going hunting.

It's dawn, and I must wander north

Along the road Christ led me forth."

So up the road I wander slow

Past where the snowdrops used to grow

With celandines in early springs,

When rainbows were triumphant things

And dew so bright and flowers so glad,

Eternal joy to lass and lad.

And past the lovely brook I paced,

The brook whose source I never traced,

The brook, the one of two which rise

In my green dream in Paradise,

In wells where heavenly buckets clink

To give God's wandering thirsty drink

By those clean cots of carven stone

Where the clear water sings alone.

Then down, past that white-blossomed pond,

And past the chestnut trees beyond,

And past the bridge the fishers knew,

Where yellow flag flowers once grew,

Where we'd go gathering cops of clover,

In sunny June times long since over.

O clover-cops half white, half red,

O beauty from beyond the dead.

O blossom, key to earth and heaven,

O souls that Christ has new forgiven.

Then down the hill to gipsies' pitch

By where the brook clucks in the ditch.

A gipsy's camp was in the copse,

Three felted tents, with beehive tops,

And round black marks where fires had been,

And one old waggon painted green,

And three ribbed horses wrenching grass,

And three wild boys to watch me pass,

And one old woman by the fire

Hulking a rabbit warm from wire.

I loved to see the horses bait,

I felt I walked at Heaven's gate,

That Heaven's gate was opened wide

Yet still the gipsies camped outside.

The waste souls will prefer the wild,

Long after life is meek and mild.

Perhaps when man has entered in'

His perfect city free from sin,

The campers will come past the walls

With old lame horses full of galls,

And waggons hung about with withies,

And burning coke in tinker's stithies,

And see the golden town, and choose,

And think the wild to good to lose.

And camp outside, as these camped then

With wonder at the entering men.

So past, and past the stone heap white

That dewberry trailers hid from sight,

And down the field so full of springs,

Where mewing peewits clap their wings,

And past the trap made for the mill

Into the field below the hill.

There was a mist along the stream,

A wet mist, dim, like in a dream;

I heard the heavy breath of cows

And waterdrops from th'alder boughs;

And eels, or snakes, in dripping grass,

Whipping aside to let me pass.

The gate was backed against the ryme

To pass the cows at milking time.

And by the gate as I went out

A moldwarp rooted earth wi's snout.

A few steps up the Callow's Lane

Brought me above the mist again,

The two great fields arose like death

Above the mists of human breath.

All earthly things that blessèd morning

Were everlasting joy and warning,

The gate was Jesus'way made plain,

the mole was Satan foiled again,

black blinded Satan snouting way

Along the red of Adam's clay;

The mist was error and damnatiion,

The lane the road unto salvation.

Out of the mist into the light,

O blessèd gift of inner sight.

The past was faded like a dream;

There come the jingling of a team,

A ploughman's voice, a clink of chain,

Slow hoofs, and harness under strain.

Up the slow slope a team came bowing,

Old Callow at his autumn ploughing,

Old Callow, stooped above the hales,

Ploughing the stubble into wales.

His grave eyes looking straight ahead,

Shearing a long straight furrow red;

His plough-foot high to give it earth

To bring new food for men to birth.

O wet red swathe of earth laid bare,

O truth, O strength, O gleaming share,

O patient eyes that watch the goal,

O ploughman of the sinner's soul.

O Jesus, drive the coulter deep

To plough my living man from sleep.

Slow up the hill the plough team plod,

Old Callow at the task of God,

Helped by man's wit, helped by the brute,

Turning a stubborn clay to fruit,

His eyes forever on some sign

To help him plough a perfect line.

At top of rise the plough team stopped,

The fore-horse bent his head and cropped.

Then the chains chack, the brasses jingle,

The lean reins gather through the cringle,

The figures move against the sky,

The clay wave breaks as they go by.

I kneeled there in the muddy fallow,

I knew that Christ was there with Callow,

That Christ was standing there with me,

That Christ had taught me what to be,

That I should plough, and as I ploughed

My Saviour Christ would sing aloud,

And as I drove the clods apart

Christ would be ploughing in my heart,

Through rest-harrow and bitter roots,

Through all my bad life's rotten fruits.

O Christ who holds the open gate,

O Christ who drives the furrow straight,

O Christ, the plough, O Christ, the laughter

Of holy white birds flying after,

Lo, all my heart's field red and torn,

And Thou wilt bring the young green corn,

The young green corn divinely springing,

The young green corn forever singing;

And when the field is fresh and fair

Thy blessèd feet shall glitter there,

And we will walk the weeded field,

And tell the holden harvests's yield,

The corn that makes the holy bread

By which the soul of man is fed,

The holy bread, the food unpriced,

Thy everlasting mercy, Christ.

The share will jar on many a stone,

Thou wilt not let me stand alone;

And I shall feel (thou wilt not fail),

Thy hand on mine upon the hale.

Near Bullen Bank, on Gloucester Road,

Thy everlasting mercy showed

The ploughman patient on the hill

Forever there, forever still,

Ploughing the hill with steady yoke

Of pine-trees lightning-struck and broke.

I've marked the May Hill ploughman stay

There on his hill, day after day

Driving his team against the sky,

While men and women live and die.

And now and then he seems to stoop

To clear the coulter with the scoop,

Or touch an ox to haw or gee

While Severn stream goes out to sea.

The sea with all her ships and sails,

And that great smoky port in Wales,

And Gloucester tower bright i' the sun,

All know that patient wandering one.

And sometimes when they burn the leaves

The bonfires' smoking trails and heaves,

And girt red flamës twink and twire

As though he ploughed the hill afire.

And in men's hearts in many lands

A spiritual ploughman stands

Forever waiting, waiting now,

The heart's "Put in, man, zook the plough."

By this the sun was all one glitter,

The little birds were all atwitter;

Out of a tuft a little lark

Went higher up than I could mark,

His little throat was all one thirst

To sing until his heart should burst

To sing aloft in golden light

His song from blue air out of sight.

The mist drove by, and now the cows

Came plodding up to milking house.

Followed by Frank, the Callow's cowman,

Who whistled, "Adam was a ploughman."

There came such cawing from the rooks,

Such running chuck from little brooks,

One thought it March, just budding green,

With hedgerows full of celandine.

An otter' out of stream and played,

Two hares come loping up and stayed;

Wide-eyed and tender-eared but bold.

Sheep bleated up from Penny's fold.

I heard a partridge covey call,

The morning sun was bright on all.

Down the long slope the plough team drove

The tossing rooks arose and hove.

A stone struck on the share. A word

Came to the team. The red earth stirred.

I crossed the hedge by shooter's gap,

I hitched my boxer's belt a strap,

I jumped the ditch and crossed the fallow:

I took the hales from framer Callow.

How swift the summer goes,

Forget-me-not, pink, rose.

The young grass when I started

And now the hay is carted,

And now my song is ended,

And all the summer splended;

The blackbirds' second brood

Routs beech leaves in the wood;

The pink and rose have speeded,

Forget-me-not has seeded.

Only the winds that blew,

The rain that makes things new,

The earth that hides things old,

And blessings manifold.

O lovely lily clean,

O lily springing green,

O lily bursting white,

Dear lily of delight,

Spring my heart agen

That I may flower to men.

Great Hampden,

June, 1911

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