by Norman B. Rohrer
Martha Snell Nicholson
A poet & her tears
A few years ago one of America’s great Christian poets, Martha Snell Nicholson, wrote this about tears: Some day, up there, perhaps a hundred years Or more from now, when we are through with tears, W hen we are used to glory, and our eyes Have feasted on His beauty, and surprise A fter surprise has thrilled our souls, and grace Has opened like a flower and His face Has grown familiar, and we rejoice In all the riches which are ours through Him — Then, peering over heaven's golden rim, And looking down through space at this brown ball, To, we shall find that scarcely we recall Our tears— but only how it felt that day To have His dear hand wipe them all away! This summer tears for Martha Snell Nicholson— and there had been many— ended. She was with the Saviour “ To have His dear hand wipe them all away.” In spite of suffering from an almost unbelievable list of diseases (tuberculosis, asthma, gall bladder in fection, arthritis, ankylosed spine, angina, sinus trou ble, anemia, ulcers, amoeba, Parkinson’s Disease, cancer) she wrote and published seven books of poems, an autobiography and many tracts. From childhood Martha was plagued by poor health. Although she was a fat baby, she was im properly nourished and early developed rickets. She was easily moved to tears and often hid her face in her mother’s apron. Since there was not always oc casion for this, her mother made her a pillow with a blue calico cover and explained that it was for crying purposes. For little Martha it was a satisfactory sub stitute and became her “ cry pillow.” Martha knew very early in life that there was something the matter with her. It was not only her poor health— she was used to that. But she harbored a conviction that whereas her parents and sisters and acquaintances “ kept their hearts safely put away in side their little cages of ribs,” she wore hers outside on
a ribbon around her neck, exposed and entirely vul nerable. Sometimes it split wide open with pain. Periods of nausea and dizziness descended upon her and she was forced to withdraw from school for a term after her first year. The second grade was easier, however, and a measure of health sustained her for the years of elementary education. Martha’s Fifth Reader, in a long preface, gave all the simple rules of poetic diction. She studied them carefully, then decided conclusively that she wanted to be a poet. Her first effort has no title. It went like this:
The storm was raging wildly On the dark and dreary sea, And the moon looked down in pity To see such m isery A woman and a little child Afloat in an open boat, And the water cold it o'er them dashed. Not long could the old craft float. But when the storm had abated, And the wind was lulling down, Through the early mist of the morning They could see the nearby town.
“ Then my inspiration failed me,” said Mrs. Nich olson. “ Perhaps the water cold it o’er them dashes to this very day.” A few years after finishing high school she was able to enter the College of Puget Sound in Washing ton. She crammed her schedule full and seemed never to learn enough to satiate her ravenously hungry mind. She read Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Renan, Nietzsche and other philosophers. “ It took much patience on the part of God,” said Martha, “ to show me that what I wanted was not a record of man’s guesses and theories but the voice of authority, the Word of God.” Howard Wren Nicholson was at that time working
14
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker