Newfoundland Verse

by E. J. Pratt

Did Jerry get through the gates of gold,
To join the white-robed Saints, that basked
In the glory of the Father's fold?
That was the question each man asked,
As Jerry lay with his cold feet
And his cold hands under the sheet.

The last man, known as Juniper Hall,
The life-time pal of Jerry Moore,
Spoke—as soon as he had the floor—
And said he disagreed with them all.
He thought the judgment of Doran,
That sanctified and solemn man,
Put altogether too great store
Upon the words of Jerry's speech,
As Jerry sat in the rain and swore
At the fish that rotted on the beach.
Why shouldn't a man, who day by day
Had seen the clouds wipe out the sun
And botch the work his hands had done,
Pour out his soul in a natural way,
On the chance of ridding his chest of it,
And tell the Lord what he thought of it all—
The rain, the fog and a hungry fall,
The rotten fish and the rest of it?

Then Juniper asked why Solomon Rowe
(Who handed out to sinners gratis
Timely advice such as might flow
From him, a saint of ten years' status)
Should so denounce what occupied
Old Jerry's mind the night he died.
He had spent the day in mending a net
And splicing a rope; without a thought
About the way a sinner ought
To make eternal peace, he ate
His three good hearty meals and went
To bed. He took no Sacrament;
He had no dying pains; he gave
No groans; nor called the Lord to save
His soul; but in his dreams he talked,
With a sort of chuckle in his speech,
Of a shoal of caplin on the beach,
And of the punt that he had caulked,
And other things that he had done.
The case was proved, for Jake, his son,
Who lay beside him on the bed,
Had vouched for all that Solomon said.
But Jerry's life from the day of his birth
Was only meant for the jobs of earth,
Like caulking punts and mending nets,
And catching fish to pay his debts.
He would shout like a man with gospel soul
At the saving news of a herring shoal,
That swarmed down the bay in the spring,
And no one louder than Jerry could sing
As he'd barrel 'em up or smoke 'em,
His rough, red hands, a-reeking with brine,
And his clothes with a mixture of turpentine,
Of tar and cod-liver oil and oakum;
What wonder then that in his sleep,
As he dreamed about that caplin shoal,
The thought should so have tickled his soul
And made him laugh, instead of weep,
Like the saints that get so short of breath
In the last hour before their death?
Besides, it's claimed he had not met,
For want of savings, a just debt
He owed to Rowe before he died.
But, then, as he had often said,
The reason why he had not paid
It off—the Lord had never dried
His load of cod; but Solomon Rowe
Had owed a hundred dollars or so
For years, though the sun had always shone
Upon the fish of Solomon.

Then Juniper thought that Watchnight Percy—
The one who spoke of the Lord's great mercy—
Though his heart was right, yet, on the whole,
Was over-anxious for Jerry's soul.
Was Jerry's chance, like that of the thief,
Merely the miracle of belief,
That in the final midnight hour
Springs from the Lord Almighty's power
And heavenly grace? Juniper could
Not argue this point for want of light
So left the question as it stood,
To deal with the claim of Christopher Wright.

Much that was spoken by Christopher
Had a measure of truth, said Juniper.
It was true that Jerry, with his mind
So bent on worldly things, might find
Beyond those gates of pearl and gold,
Within those heavenly pavilions,
Where white-robed angels by the millions
Bask in the glory of the fold,
No angel who would undertake
To wean his thoughts from earthly things,
And fit him up with a pair of wings;
Or—still more hopeless job—to make
Him change his manners and his speech,
So that those lordly potentates
Might not be shocked, as Jerry's mates
Were often shocked upon the beach.
All this, he said, and more beside
May yet be true of the man that died—
(Jerry, who swore when the mood was on.
And worried the soul of Solomon;
Jerry, the most consistent liar
That ever told a fish-yarn when,
On a wintry night, a crew of men
Were gathered around a tamarack fire!)
"I do not care," said Juniper,
Looking direct at Christopher,
"What Gabriel may think of Jerry,
Or (turning around to stare at Joe)
What the sins were that Doran might know:
Or whether he laughed in his sleep and was merry
In the hour of death, as Jake, his son,
Who lay beside him in the bed
Reported the news to Solomon
Of what the dying man had said."

Thus Juniper spoke, his eyes a-glow,
His bony fingers pointing at Rowe.

Then we felt a deep hush fall
Upon the room, as Juniper Hall
Spoke to the dead man under the sheet,
Just as a common man might greet
A living friend. "Well, Jerry, old mate,
They may talk as they like—now that you're cold—
Of those who enter the Father's fold,
Through mercy and grace. They may talk of the fate
Of your soul. They may shake their heads and groan
For fear God's mercy was not shown
To you before you died. I know
Nothing of what the angels do,
Or where the souls of dead men go;
But I'll take my chance in saying that you,
Who always did your day's work well,
Had far too good a soul for hell.
I do not know the kind of luck
That came to Christopher and Joe
And saved from the fire the soul of Rowe,
Nor how the balances are struck
At death; but I'd like to state
If things like contra accounts are stored
On the shelves of the upper Courts of the Lord.
Who judges the hearts of men, that your slate,
Jerry, should tell by a clean score
How you were head of a life-boat crew,
With no one as good at the stern oar,
And always on hand when a storm blew;
And tell how you pulled young Davie Cole,
(Who sits on that bench) out of a hole
In the slob ice one bitter night
In March when Davey was frozen through,
And lugged him ashore with his face as white
As the lip of a ghost, and brought him to,
With no one around to lend you a hand.
Yes, Jerry, old mate, if you never reach
For want of faith the angels' land,
Without a sea, without a beach,
Maybe the Lord in His good grace,
May find close to the boundary
Of heaven and the outer place,
A strip of shoreline by a sea,
Where the winds blow and where you,
As skipper of a life-boat crew,
May throw a line across the deck
Of many a crowded, foundering wreck.
And on fine days when not aboard
Your skiff, but lying up, the Lord
May find odd jobs, perhaps a sail
To mend, that in a Galilean gale
Was torn, or one or two old punts
That He and Simon Peter once
Used on the lake; or say, 'Here's bark
And oakum, oil and pitch, all that
You need; go—caulk that leaky ark
That went aground on Ararat.'
And when you call your gang together,
Some night in raw December weather
(The gang made up of your lifeboat crew,
And other spotted saints of God,
Exiled to that shore with you
Because, while on the earth, they trod
On both the broad and narrow ways)
To tell your yarns before a blaze
Of balsam piled on tamarack—
That night, I swear, I will come back
(As stoker from the outer land
On special leave from Lucifer)
To start your fire with my brand;
I swear it now," said Juniper.

V.

THE HISTORY OF JOHN JONES