RELIGION AND LIFE

Southland Times, Issue 25794, 4 October 1945, Page 2

RELIGION AND LIFE

By

ICHTHUS

Follow The Gleam

Margaret and I were talking about Tennyson tonight. In the days of our courtship we read the latest complete volume of his poems together. Mostly, I read them to her aloud—which I still think is the only way to read poetry. Was it the influence of spring-time, or a literary impulse undiluted? At any rate she asked me to read “Merlin and the Gleam” to her again. When I had finished, she said: “That is not only beautiful. It is true. But the world seems to have forgotten it.” Is she right, I wonder? That it is as beautiful as it is true, and as true as it is beautiful, I know. But has our modtern world forgotten it? Do we know the gleam? Do we, like Merlin, ‘the gray magician,’ spend our lives looking for, and, in all that we do, following the gleam? Or are we A barbarous people Blind to the magic And deaf to the melody? Anyway, I am bound to write about it today. THE POEM Beg or borrow a copy of Tennyson—if you have none of your own—and read thg poem for yourself. It is not long, but it is too long to quote here. Merlin, the gray magician, lies dying, and speaks to the young mariner from the haven under the sea-cliff, who watches him with eyes of wonder. He tells of the Wizard, Him the Mighty, who found him at sunrise, and in childhood taught him His magic. “Great the Master, and sweet the magic, when over the valley in early summers, over the mountain, on human faces, and all around me, moving to melody, floated the Gleam.” Down all the years since, through all life’s experiences, ever before him, flitted the Gleam. Now he has come to “the land’s last limit,” and he dies rejoicing—for “there on the border of boundless Ocean, and all but in Heaven, hovers the Gleam!” The poem concludes in a high, strong note, addressed ostensibly to the young mariner, but really to us all: Not of the sunlight, Not of the moonlight, Not of the starlight! O young mariner, Down to the haven, Call your companions, Launch your vessel, And crowd your canvas. And, ere it vanishes Over the margin, After it, follow it, Follow the Gleam! MAGIC OR TRUTH

Is it only a poet’s fantasy? Is it mere magic? Or is it truth? If you asked the poet himself he would have told you that he was using poetry as an instrument to sound forth the music of what was to him the eternal truth, the ultimate conviction of his soul. The Wizard, Him the Mighty, who found us at sunrise, taught us in childhood His magic—we know His Name, the name that is above every name, Carpenter of Galilee, Christ of the Cross, Master of Men, and Lord of All. It was He taught us the reality of the Unseen, made life magical with goodness and hope, and lighted foi - us the light that never was on sea or land. If we could only keep our hearts child-like, and hold fast to His magic on our way through the world, we would not come to be “blind to the magic, and deaf to the melody.” No, something quite other, for want of which the world has suffered much, and may yet perish in desolation and darkness. If “a demon vext me, the light retreated, the landskip darken’d, the melody deaden’d, the Master whispered, ‘Follow the Gleam.’ ” For him all life’s shadows and clouds, and its mountain sides, were “clothed with the Gleam.” So would ours be.

Is it magic, fantasy, or is it the incredible truth? That is the question. And if it is as Tennyson thought, and Jesus knew and proclaimed, very truth of very truth, then

O young mariner, Down to the haven, And, ere it vanishes Over the margin, After it, follow it, Follow the Gleam.