To men and girls who'd come and go.

These thoughts suddenly become intolerable. A second fit of madness,
wilder than the first, drives the man about the town like a tornado.
Finally and impressively comes the contrast between the drunkard's
horrible mirth and the sudden calm in his mind when the tall pale
Quakeress hypnotizes him with conviction of sin. She drives out the
devils from his breast with quiet authority, and the peace of God
enters into his soul.

From the first word of the poem to the last the man's own attitude
toward fighting, drink, and religion is logically sustained. It is
perfect drama, with never a false note. The hero is one of the
"twice-born men," and the work may fairly be taken as one more
footnote to the varieties of religious experience.

I have been told on good authority that of all his writings Mr.
Masefield prefers _Nan_, _The Widow in the Bye Street_, and
_The Everlasting Mercy_. I think he is right. In these
productions he has no real competitors. They are his most original,
most vivid, most powerful pieces. He is at his best when he has a
story to tell, and can tell it freely in his own unhampered way, a
combination of drama and narrative. In _The Everlasting Mercy_,
written in octosyllabics, the metre of _Christmas Eve_, he is
unflinchingly realistic, as Browning was in describing the chapel. The
_Athenaeum_ thought Browning ought not to write about the
mysteries of the Christian faith in doggerel. But _Christmas Eve_
is not doggerel. It is simply the application of the rules of realism
to a discussion of religion. It may lack the dignity of the _Essay
on Man_, but it is more interesting because it is more definite,