Christ's face, and his life experiences, here and there slip out of the lines of this English poet with an insistence that cannot but win the heart of the world, especially the heart of the Christian. Here and there in the most unexpected places his living presence stands before you, with, to use another of the poet's own lines, "Words that would make the dead arise," as in "Vicisti, Galilee":
"Poor, scornful Lilliputian souls,
And are ye still too proud
To risk your little aureoles
By kneeling with the crowd?
* * * * *
"And while ye scoff, on every side
Great hints of Him go by,—Souls
that are hourly crucified
On some new Calvary!"
* * * * *
"In flower and dust, in chaff and grain,
He binds Himself and dies!
We live by His eternal pain,
His hourly sacrifice."
* * * * *
"And while ye scoff from shore to shore
From sea to moaning sea,
'Eloi, eloi,' goes up once more,
'Lama sabachthani!'
The heavens are like a scroll unfurled,
The writing flames above—
This is the King of all the World
Upon His Cross of Love!"
Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.
And there in the very midst of "Drake," that poem of a great sea fighter, comes this quatrain unexpectedly, showing the Christ always in the background of the poet's mind. He uses the Christ eagerly as a figure, as a help to his thought. He always puts the Christ and his cross to the fore: