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The Everlasting Mercy

by John Masefield

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I opened window wide and leaned

Out of that pigstye of the fiend

And felt a cool wind go like grace

About the sleeping market-place.

The clock struck three, and sweetly, slowly,

The bells chimed Holy, Holy, Holy;

And in a second's pause there fell

The cold note of the chapel bell.

And then a cock crew, flapping wings,

And summat made me think of things.

How long those ticking clocks had gone

From church to chapel, on and on,

Ticking the time out, ticking slow

To men and girls who'd come and go,

And how they ticked in belfry dark

When half the town was bishop's park,

And how they'd run a chime full tilt

The night after the church was built,

And that night was Lambert's Feast,

The night I'd fought and been a beast.

And how a change had come. And then

I thought, "You tick to different men."

What with the fight and what with drinking

And being awake alone there thinking,

My mind began to carp and tetter,

"If this life's all, the beasts are better."

And then I thought, "I wish I'd seen

The many towns this town has been;

I wish I knew if they'd a got

A kind of summat we've a-not,

If them as built the church so fair

Were half the chaps folk say they were;

For they'd the skill to draw their plan,

And skill's a joy to any man;

And they'd the strength, not skill alone,

To build it beautiful in stone;

And strength and skill together thus

O, they were happier men than us.

But if they were, they had to die

The same as every one and I.

And no one lives again, but dies,

And all the bright goes out of eyes,

and all the skill goes out of hands,

And all the wise brain understands,

And all the beauty, all the power

Is cut down like a withered flower.

In all the show from birth to rest

I give the poor dumb cattle best."

I wondered, then, why life should be,

And what would be the end of me

When youth and health and strength were gone

And cold old age came creeping on?

A keeper's gun? The Union ward?

Or that new quod at Hereford?

And looking round I felt disgust

At all the nights of drink and lust,

And all the looks of all the swine

Who'd said that they were friends of mine;

And yet I knew, when morning came,

The morning would be just the same,

for I'd have drinks and Jane would meet me

And drunken Silas Jones would greet me,

And I'd risk quod and keeper's gun

Till all the silly game was done.

"For parson chaps are mad, supposin'

A chap can change the road he's chosen."

And then the Devil whispered, "Saul,

Why should you want to live at all?

Why fret and sweat and try to mend?

It's all the same thing in the end.

But when it's done," he said, "it's ended.

Why stand it , since it can't be mended?"

And in my heart I heard him plain,

"Throw yourself down and end it, Kane."

"Why not?" said I. "Why not? But no.

I won't. I've never had my go.

I've not had all the world can give.

Death by and by, but first I'll live.

The world owes me my time of times,

And that time's coming now, by crimes."

A madness took me then. I felt

I'd like to hit the world a belt.

I felt that I could fly through air,

A screaming star with blazing hair,

A rushing comet, crackling, numbing

The folk with fear of judgment coming,

A 'Lijah in a fiery car,

Coming to tell folk what they are.

"That's what I'll do," I shouted loud.

"I'll tell this sanctimonious crowd

This town of window peeping, prying,

Maligning, peering, hinting, lying,

Male and female human blots

Who would, but daren't be, whores and sots,

That they're so steeped in petty vice

That they're less excellent than lice,

That touching one of them will dirt you,

Dirt you with the stain of mean

Cheating trade and going between,

Pinching, starving, scraping, hoarding

To see if Sue, the prentice lean,

Dares to touch the margarine.

Fawning, cringing, oiling boots,

Raging in the crowd's pursuits,

Flinging stones at all the Stephens,

Standing firm with all the evens

Making hell for all the odd,

All the lonely ones of God,

Those poor lonely ones who find

Dogs more mild than human kind.

For dogs," I said, "are nobles born

To most of you, you cockled corn.

I've known dogs to leave their dinner,

Nosing a kind heart in a sinner.

Poor old Crafty wagged his tail

The day I first came home from jail.

When all my folk, so primly clad,

Glowered black and thought me mad,.

And muttered how they'd all expected.

(I've thought of that old dog for years,

And of how near I come to tears.)

But you, you minds of bread and cheese,

Are less divine tha[n] that dog's fleas,

You suck blood from kindly friends,

And kill them when it serves your ends.,

Double traitors, double black,

Stabbing only in the back,

Stabbing with the knives you borrow

From the friends you bring to sorrow.

You stab all that's true and strong,

Truth and strength you say are wrong,

Meek and mild, and sweet and creeping,

Repeating, canting cadging, peeping,

That's the art and that's the life

To win a man his neighbour's wife.

All that's good and all that's true,

You kill that, so I'll kill you."

At that I tore my clothes in shreds

And hurled them on the window leads;

I flung my boots through both the winders

And knocked the glass to little flinders;

The punch bowl and the tumblers followed,

and then I seized the lamps and holloed,

And down the stairs, and tore back bolts,

As mad as twenty blooded colts;

And out into the street I pass,

As mad as two-year-olds at grass

A naked madman saving grand

A blazing lamp in either hand.

I yelled like twenty drunken sailors,

:The devil's come among the tailors."

A blaze of flame behind me streamed,

And then I clashed the lamps and screamed

"I'm Satan, newly come from hell."

And then I spied the fire bell.

I've been a ringer, so I know

How best to make a big bell go.

So on to bell-rope swift swoop,

And stick my one foot in the loop

And heave a down-swig till I groan

"Awake, you swine, you devil's own."

I made the fire-bell awake,

I felt the bell-rope throb and shake;

I felt the air mingle and clang

And beat the walls a muffled bang,

And stifle back and boom and bay

Like muffled peals on Boxing Day,

And then surge up and gather shape,

And spread great pinions and escape;

And each great bird of clanging shrieks

O Fire! Fire, from iron beaks.

My shoulders cracked to send around

Those shrieking birds made out of sound

With news of fire in their bills.

(They heard 'em plain beyond Wall Hills.).

Up go the winders, out come heads,

I heard the springs go creak in beds;

But still I heave and sweat and tire,

And still the clang goes "Fire, Fire!"

"Where is it, then? Who is it, there?

You ringer, stop, and tell us where."

"Run round and let the Captain know."

"It must be bad, he's ringing so,"

"It's in the town, I see the flame;

Look there! Look there, how red it came."

"Where is it, then? O stop the bell."

I stopped and called: "It's fire of hell;

And this is Sodom and Gomorrah,

And now I'll burn you up, begorra."

By this time firemen were mustering,

The half-dressed stable men were flustering,

Backing the horses out of stalls

While this man swears and that man bawls,

"Don't take th'old mare. Back, Toby, back.

Back, Lincoln. Where's the fire, Jack?"

"Damned if I know. Out Preston way."

"No. It's at Chancey's Pitch, they say."

"It's sixteen ricks at Pauntley burnt."

"You back old Darby out, I durn't."

They ran the big red engine out,

And put 'em to with damn and shout.

And then they start to raise the shire,

"Who brought the news, and where's the fire?"

They's moonlight, lamps, and gas to light 'em.

I give a screech-owl's screech to fright 'em,

And snatch from underneath their noses

The nozzles of the fire hoses.

"I am the fire. Back, stand back,

Or else I'll fetch your skulls a crack;

D'you see these copper nozzles here?

They weigh ten pounds a piece, my dear;

I'm fire of hell come up this minute

To burn this town and burn you clean,

You cogwheels in a stopped machine,

You hearts of snakes, and brains of pigeons,

You dead devout of dead religions,

You offspring of the hen and ass,

By Pilate ruled, and Caiaphas.

Now your account is totted. Learn

Hell's flames are loose and you shall burn."

At that I leaped and screamed and ran,

I heard their cries go, "Catch him, man."

"Who was it?" "Down him." "Out him, Em."

"Duck him at pump, we'll see who'll burn."

A policeman clutched, a fireman clutched,

A dozen others snatched and touched.

"By God, he's stripped down to his buff."

"By God, we'll make him warm enough."

"After him," "Catch him," "Out him," " Scrob him."

"We'll give him hell." "By God, we'll mob him."

"We'll duck him, scrout him, flog him, fratch him."

"All right," I said. "But first you'll catch him."

The men who don't know to the root

The joy of being swift of foot,

Have never known divine and fresh

The glory of the gift of flesh,

Nor felt the feet exult, not gone

Along a dim road, on and on,

Knowing again the bursting glows,

the mating hare in April knows,

Who tingles to the pads with mirth

At being the swiftest thing on earth.

O, if you want to know delight,

Run naked in an autumn night,

And laugh, as I laughed then, to find

A running rabble drop behind,

and whang, on ever door you pass,

Two copper nozzles, tipped with brass,

And double whang at every turning,

And yell, "All hell's loose, and burning."

I beat my brass and shouted fire

At doors of parson, lawyer, squire,

at all three doors I threshed and slammed

And yelled aloud that they were damned.

I clodded squire's glass with turves

Because he spring-gunned his preserves.

Through parson's glass my nozzle swishes

Because he stood for loaves and fishes,

but parson's glass I spared a tittle.

He give me a orange once when little,

And he who gives a child a treat

Makes joy-bells ring in Heaven's street,

And he who gives a child a home

Build palaces in Kingdom come

and she who gives a baby birth

Brings Saviour Christ again to Earth,

For life is joy, and mind is fruit,

And body's precious earth and root.

But lawyer's glass-well, never mind,

Th' old Adam's strong in me, I find.

God pardon man, and may God's son

Forgive the evil things I've done.

What more? By Dirty Lane I crept

Back to the Lion, where I slept.

The raging madness hot and floodin'

Boiled itself out and left me sudden,

Left me worn out and sick and cold,

Aching as though I'd all grown old;

So there I lay, and there they found me

On door-mat, with a curtain round me.

Si took my heels and Jane my head

And laughed, and carried me to bed.

And from the neighbouring street they reskied

My boots and trousers, coat and weskit;

They bath-bricked both the nozzles bright

To be mementoes of the night,

And knowing what I should awake with,

They flanelled me a quart to slake with

And sat and shook till half past two

Expecting Police Inspector Drew.

I woke and drank, nd went to meat

In clothes still dirty from the street.

Down in the bar I hear 'em tell

How someone rang the fire bell,

And how th'inspector's search had thriven,

And how five pounds reward was given.

And shepherd Boyce, of Marley, glad us

By saying was blokes from mad'us.

Or two young rips lodged at the Prince

Whom none had seen nor heard of since,

Or that young blade from Worcester Walk

(You know how country people talk).

Young Joe the ostler come in sad,

He said th'old mare had bit his dad.

He said there'd come a blazing screeching

Daft Bible-prophet chap a-preaching,

Had put th'old mare in such a taking

she'd thought the bloody earth was quaking.

And others come and spread a tale

Of cut-throats out of Gloucester jail,

And how we needed extra cops

With all them Welsh come picking hops:

With drunken Welsh in all our sheds

We might be murdered in our beds.

By all accounts, both men and wives

Had had the scare up of their lives.

I ate and drank and gathered strength,

And stretched along the bench full length,

Or crossed to window seat to pat

Black Silas Jones's little cat.

At four I called, "You devil's own,

The second trumpet shall be blown.

The second trump, the second blast;

Hell's flames are loosed, and judgment's passed.

Too late for mercy now. Take warning.

I'm death and hell and Judgment morning."

I hurled the bench into the settle,

I banged the table on the kettle,

I sent Joe's quart of cider spinning.

"Lo, here begins my second inning."

Each bottle, mug, and jug and pot

I smashed to crocks in half a tot;

And Joe, and Si, and Nick, and Percy

I rolled together topsy versy.

And as I ran I heard 'em call,

"Now damn to hell, what's gone with Saul?"

Out into street I ran uproarious

The devil dancing in me glorious.

And as I ran I yell and shriek

"Come on, now, turn the other cheek."

Across the way by almshouse pump

I see old puffing parson stump.

Old parson, red-eyed as a ferret

From nightly wrestlings with the spirit;

I ran acrosss, and barred his path.

His turkey gills went red as wrath

And then he froze as parsons can.

"The police will deal with you, my man."

"Not yet, "said I, "not yet they won't;

And now you'll hear me, like or don't.

The English Church both is and was

A subsidy of Caiaphas.

I don't believe in Prayer or Bible,

They're lies all through, and you're a libel,

A libel on the Devil's plan

When first he miscreated man.

You mumble through a formal code

To get which martyrs burned and blowed.

I look on martyrs as mistakes,

But still they burned for it at stakes;

Your only fire's the jolly fire

Where you can guzzle port with Squire,

And back and praise his damned opinions

About his temporal dominions.

You let him give the man who digs,

A filthy hut unfit for pigs,

Without a well, without a drain,

With mossy thatch that lets in rain,

Without a 'lotment, 'less he rent it,

And never meat, unless he scent it,

But weekly doles of 'leven shilling

To make a grown man strong and willing,

To do the hardest work on earth

And feed his wife when she gives birth,

And feed his little children's bones.

I tell you, man, the Devil groans.

With all your main and all your might

You back what is against what's right;

You let the Squire do things like these,

You back him in't and give him ease,

You take his hand and drink his wine,

And he's a hog, but you're a swine.

For you take gold to teach God's ways

And teach man how to sing God's praise.

And now I'll tell you what you teach

In downright honest English speech.

"You teach the ground-down starving man

That Squire's greed's Jehovah's plan.

You get his learning circumvented

Lest it should make him discontented

(Better a brutal, starving nation

Than men with thoughts above their station),

You let him neither read nor think,

You goad his wretched soul to drink

And then to jail, the drunken boor;

O sad intemperance of the poor.

You starve his soul till it's rapscallion,

Then blame his flesh for being stallion.

You send your wife around to paint

The golden glories of "restraint."

How moral exercise bewild'rin'

Would soon result in fewer children.

You work a day in Squire's fields

And see what sweet restraint it yields,

A woman's day at turnip picking,

Your hearts too fat for plough or ricking.

"And you whom luck taught French and Greek

Have purple flaps on either cheek,

A stately house, and time for knowledge,

And gold to send your sons to college,

That pleasant place, where getting learning

Is also key to money earning.

But quite your damndest want of grace

Is what you do to save your face;

The way you sit astride the gates

By padding wages out of rates;

Your Christmas gifts of shoddy blankets

That every working soul may thank its

Loving parson, loving squire

Through whom he can't afford a fire.

Your well-packed bench, your prison pen,

To keep them something less than men;

Your friendly clubs to help 'em bury.

Your charities of midwifery.

Your bidding children duck and cap

To them who give them workhouse pap.

O, what you are, and what you preach,

And what you do, and what you teach

Is not God's Word, nor honest schism,

But Devil's scant and pauperism."

By this time many folk had gathered

To listen to me while I blathered;

I said my piece, and when I'd said it,

I'll do the purple parson credit,

He sunk (as sometimes parsons can)

His coat's excuses in the man.

"You'd think the Squire and I are kings

Who made the existing state of things,

And made it ill. I answer, No,

States are not made, nor patched; they grow,

Grow slow through centuries of pain

And grow correctly in the main,

But only grow by certain laws

Of certain bits in certain jaws.

You want to doctor that. Let be.

You cannot patch a growing tree.

Put these two words beneath your hat,

These two: securus judicat.

The social states of human kinds

Are made by multitudes of minds,

And after multitudes of years

A little human growth appears

Worth having, even to the soul

Who sees most plain it's not the whole.

This state is dull and evil, both,

I keep it in the path of growth;

You think the Church an outworn fetter;

Kane, keep it, till you've built a better.

And keep the existing social state;

I quite agree it's out of date,

One does too much, another shirks,

Unjust, I grant; but still. . . it works.

To get the whole world out of bed

And washed, and dressed, and warmed, and fed,

To work, and back to bed again,

Believe me, Saul, costs worlds of pain.

Then, as to whether true or sham

That book of Christ, Whose priest I am;

The Bible is a lie, say you,

where do you stand, suppose it true?

Goodbye. But if you've more to say

My doors are open night and day.

Meanwhile, my friend, 'twould be no sin

To mix more water in your gin.

We're neither saints nor Philip Sidneys,

But mortal men with mortal kidneys."

He took his snuff, and wheezed a greeting,

And waddled off to mother's meeting;

I hung my head upon my chest,

I give old purple parson best.

For while the Plough tips round the Pole

The trained mind outs the upright soul,

As Jesus said the trained mind might,

Being wiser than the sons of light,

But trained men's minds are spread so thin

They let all sorts of darkness in;

Whatever light man finds they doubt it

They love, not light, but talk about it.

But parson'd proved to people's eyes

That I was drunk, and he was wise;

And people grinned and women tittered,

And little children mocked and twittered.

So, blazing mad, I stalked to bar

To show how noble drunkards are,

And guzzled spirits like a beast,

To show contempt for Church and priest,

Until, by six, my wits went round

Like hungry pigs in parish pound.

At half past six, rememb'ring Jane,

I staggered into street again

With mind made up (or primed for gin)

To bash the coop who'd run me in;

For well I knew I'd have to cock up

My legs that night inside the lock-up,

And it was my most fixed intent

To have a fight before I went.

Our Fates are strange, and no one now his;

Our lovely Saviour Christ disposes.

Jane wasn't where we'd planned, the jade.

She'd thought me drunk and hadn't stayed.

So I went up the Walk to look for her

And lingered by the little brook for her,

And dowsed my face, and drank at spring,

And watched two wild ducks on the wing,

The moon come pale, the wind come cool,

A big pike leapt in Lower Pool,

The Peacock screamed, the clouds were straking,

My cut cheek felt the weather breaking;

An orange sunset waned and thinned

Foretelling rain and western wind,

And while I watched I heard distinct

The metals on the railway clinked.

The blood-edged clouds were all in tatters,

The sky and earth seemed mad as hatters;

they had a death look, wild and odd,

Of something dark foretold by God.

And seeing it so, I felt so shaken

I wouldn't keep the road I'd taken,

But wandered back towards the inn

Resolved to brace myself with gin.

And as I walked, I said, "It's strange,

There's Death let loose to-night, and Change."

In Cabbage Walk, I made a haul

Of two big pears from lawyer's wall,

And, munching one, I took the lane

Back into Market-place again.

Lamp-lighter Dick had passed the turning.

And all the Homend lamps were burning,

The windows shone, the shops were busy,

But that strange Heaven made me dizzy.

The sky had all God's warning writ

In bloody marks all over it,

And over all I thought there was

A ghastly light besides the gas.

The Devil's tasks and Devil's rages

Were giving me the Devil's wages.

In Market-place it's always light,

The big shop windows make it bright;

And in the press of people buying

I spied a little fellow crying

Because his mother'd gone inside

And left him there, and so he cried.

And mother'd beat him when she found him,

And mother's whip would curl right round him,

And mother'd say h'ed done to crost her,

Though there being crowds about he'd lost her.

(Continued)

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