TOMLINSON

Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square,

And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair

A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him

Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the

roar of the Milky Way:

Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease,

And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.

'Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high

'The good that ye

did for the sake of men or ever

ye came to die

'The good that ye did for the sake of men in little

earth so lone!'

And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as

a rain-washed bone.

'O I have a friend on earth,' he said, ' that was

my priest and guide,

'And well would he answer all for me if he were by my side.'

For that ye strove in neighbour-love it shall be written fair,

'But now ye wait at Heaven's Gate and not in Berkeley Square:

'Though we called your friend from his bed this

night, he could not speak for you,

'For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two.'

Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there,

For the naked stars grinned overhead, and he saw

that his soul was bare:

The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut

him like a knife,

And Tomlinson took up his tale and spoke of his good in life.

'This I have read in a book,' he said, 'and that was told to me,

'And this I have thought that another man thought of a Prince in Muscovy.'

The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade him clear the path,

And Peter twirled the jangling keys in weariness and wrath.

'Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought,' he said, 'and the tale is yet to run:

'By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer-what ha' ye done?'

Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and

little good it bore,

For the Darkness stayed at his shoulder-blade

and Heaven's Gate before :

'O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and

this I have heard men say,

'And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway.'

'Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, Ye have hampered Heaven's

good lack!

Gate;

'There's little room between the stars in idleness

to prate!

'O none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin,

Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within;

'Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for

doom has yet to run,

'And . . . the faith that ye share with Berkeley

Square uphold you, Tomlinson!'

The Spirit gripped him by the hair, and sun by

sun they fell

Till they came to the belt of Naughty Stars that rim the mouth of Hell;

The first are red with pride and wrath, the next are white with pain,

But the third are black with clinkered sin that cannot burn again:

They may hold their path, they may leave their path, with never a soul to mark,

They may burn or freeze, but they must not cease in the Scorn of the Outer Dark.

The Wind that blows between the worlds, it

nipped him to the bone,

And he yearned to the flare of Hell-gate there as the light of his own hearth-stone.

The Devil he sat behind the bars, where the

desperate legions drew,

But he caught the hasting Tomlinson and would not let him through.