And as the poet has walked the streets of America and elsewhere and has seen the service flag, which in "Each window shrines a name," he has felt God everywhere. In "The Leaves of the Golden Book" he comforts those who mourn: "God will gather all these scattered Leaves into His Golden Book, Torn and crumpled, soiled and battered, He will heal them with a look. Not one soul of them has perished; No man ever yet forsook Wife and home, and all he cherished, And God's purpose undertook, But he met his full reward In the 'Well Done' of his Lord!" The Vision Splendid. So it is that over and over we hear this note, wrung from the experiences of war, that those who give up all, to die for God's plan, to take the cross in suffering that the world may be better; these shall have life eternal. And who dares to dispute it? In "Our Share" we are admonished that we must find God anew: "Heads of sham gold and feet of crumbling clay, If we would build anew and build to stay, We must find God again, And go His way." All's Well. Oxenham does not claim to fully understand the world cataclysm any more than some of the rest of us. If we all had to understand, we might find ourselves ineligible for the Kingdom, but the Book says everywhere, "He that believeth on me shall have everlasting life." And we can believe whether we understand or no. So voices the poet in "God's Handwriting": "He writes in characters too grand For our short sight to understand; We catch but broken strokes, and try To fathom all the mystery Of withered hopes, of deaths, of life, The endless war, the useless strife,-- But there, with larger, clearer sight, We shall see this-- HIS WAY WAS RIGHT." All's Well, What better way to close this brief interpretation of our poet in this day of darkness and hate and hurt and war and woe and want, of seeing hopelessness and helplessness, than with these heartening lines from "God Is": "God is; God sees; God loves; God knows. And Right is Right; And Right is Might. In the full ripeness of His Time, All these His vast prepotencies Shall round their grace-work to the prime Of full accomplishment, And we shall see the plan sublime Of His beneficent intent. Live on in hope! Press on in faith! Love conquers all things, Even Death." All's Well. [Illustration: ALFRED NOYES.] VI ALFRED NOYES [Footnote: The poetical selections appearing in this chapter are used by permission, and are taken from Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes, two volumes, copyright, 1913, by the Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.] A STUDY OF CHILDHOOD, OF MANHOOD, CHRISTHOOD, AND GODHOOD