The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

Speak out, speak out!
We are all hungering, sir, for truthful words
Of faith or doubt;
And we are weary of all mocking-birds
Who would be dumb
If they might eat their meat, and do no more;
And only come,
And sing again what we have heard before,
And grind again the same tune at the door
To get their crumb.

357

Oh yes, yes, yes!
We have much talk, we have abundant speech
In Rhetoric dress—
Thin thready talk that has no truth to teach;
Poor echoes sent
From rock-like brains that barren are of thught:
No nutriment
On which a soul may live is to be got
From echoes which are shadows, and give not
The least content.

Just speak out that
Which God gives you to live on day by day;
And say not what
The people round about would have you say—
Oh I could preach,
If they would let me, if I had a sphere!—
If you would reach
The hearts of others, listen first and hear
What your own heart is saying, and speak it clear
To all and each.

Take not your words
From pulpit, platform, or from parliament;
Just take the Lord's—
The words which from His lips to you are sent,
Which few desire,
But all believe, whether they will or no:
And for no hire
Proclaim them from the housetops where you go,
And cry aloud, because they burn and glow
In you like fire!

What! man, you talk
Of living by the gospel you proclaim!
Well, if you walk
So as to glorify the Lord's great name,
You shall have meat
Enough—the meat He gave to His own Son,
And that was sweet.
“Not muzzle the ox!” what harm that text has done,
Just making lazy nowt of many a one
For meat to eat!

I've gone to Kirk
Sixty years now since first with Jenny, nurse;
And what a work
I've heard them make about the Fall and Curse,
Imputed sin,
Imputed right, imputed everything.
Meanwhile within
The devil who had us in his grips would sing,
“Impute away! that's just the way to bring
My bairns in.”

Now don't you spin
Notions and crotchet-things, like that about
Imputed sin,
When sin's a fact whereof there is no doubt;
As you can see
Flaunting at every corner its disgrace
Or misery,
And in the “Publics” running a hot race,
Ay! and at Kirk too smirking in the face
O' the Pharisee.

Then speak out, man;
Out with it plain, the devil is in the town,

358

And what we can,
That, with God's help, we must, to put him down:
Oh, fools may scoff,
But he laughs last who truth has on his side:
Hell's not far off
Where such folk are; it's at your very side,
And souls drop in, as balls are made to slide
I' th' holes at golf.

There are the holes,
And here the devil's game, and well he plays;
For thoughtless souls
Come dropping in, with some bit pleasant phrase,
Each hour o' the day.
An easy job he's had this many a year,
For it's poor play
We've had against him; God's been ill served here,
And it's been like to drive me mad to hear
Their feckless way.

But you have come
Fresh and hot-hearted, as I hear, from College,
Freighted like some
Others, no doubt, with tons of useless knowledge.
But, O my man,
It's not your metaphysics that we need,
Watery and wan;
Just take the Book, and with your own eyes read,
And drop the spectacles of an oldworld creed
About “The Plan.”

And preach right out,
And pray; I do not mean to stamp the floor,
And sweat and shout;
God is not deaf that you should need to roar:
But take our sin
Right by the throat, and call it by its name,
Nor mind the din
The devil will raise because ye spoil his game,
Or Pharisee because he's put to shame,
Turned outside in.

Pick ye no words
To tickle itching ears with rhetoric;
They have the birds
To sing to them, if that is what they seek:
It's dainty phrase
And mincing speech have been our very death
These many days,
As in the Kirk we sought not truth and faith,
But tricks of art to hear with bated breath,
Like fine stage plays.

Be strong and true;
Hold up our sins that we may see them bare,
And hold up too
The Cross both to believe it, and to share
Its pain and loss,
Should sorrow fill our cup unto the brim;
For on the Cross
We see the glory as the eye grows dim,
Only we're fain to hand it on to Him
Who clasped it close.

Believing much
The Cross, that it is all our help and hope,
We will not touch
It with our finger, fain to let it drop;

359

And therewith cease
The grace and bliss and riches that it brings,
And all increase;
Meanwhile we sing about the angels' wings,
And soothe the sickly conscience as it stings,
And call this Peace.