Leslie Coulson
The old men in the olden days,
Who thought and worked in simple ways,
Believed in God and sought His praise.
They looked to God in daily need,
He shone in simple, homely deed;
They prayed to Him to raise their seed.
He sowed on mountain side and weald,
He steered the plough across the field,
He garnered in their harvest yield.
And if He gave them barren sod,
Or smote them with His lightning rod,
They yielded humbly to their God.
They searched the record of their days
To find and mend their evil ways,
Which made the wrath of God to blaze.
And if no evil they could find,
They did not say, “Our God is blind,”
“God’s will be done,” they said, resigned.
So played the old their humble part,
And lived in peace of soul and heart,
Without pretence of Reason’s art.
But we have lost their simple creed
Of simple aim and simple need,
Of simple thought and simple deed.
Their creed has crumbled as their dust,
We do not yield their God as just,
Now question holds the place of trust.
Faith blossomed like the Holy Rod,
So grew the old men’s faith in God.
We cannot tread the path they trod.
We were not born to anchored creed
That measures good and evil deed –
A guide to those who guidance need.
The God the old men hearkened to
We left, and in our image drew
And fashioned out a God anew.
That iron God, who still unfed,
Sits throned with lips that dribble red
Among the sacrificial dead.
Belching their flames between the bars,
Our fires sweep out like scimitars
Across the Eden of the stars.
And souls are sold and souls are bought,
And souls in hellish tortures wrought
To feed the mighty juggernaut.
The dripping wheels go roaring by
And crush and kill us where we lie
Blaspheming God with our last cry.
Man’s cry to man the heaven fills;
We hear not in our marts and mills
The silent voices of the hills
The message of the breathing clay,
Calling us through the night and day
To come away, to come away!
For though old creeds, had we the will,
We cannot, lacking faith, fulfil,
The God above all creed waits still.
For still beyond the city gate,
The fallow fields eternal wait
For us to drive our furrow straight.
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem is a poignant reflection on the shift from an older, simpler faith to the complexity and turmoil of modernity. It contrasts the humble, devout lives of past generations with the mechanized, fragmented world of the present. The speaker mourns the loss of a direct, unquestioning relationship with God, replacing it with a “new” God — one shaped by human invention, and deeply intertwined with the destructive forces of industrialization, war, and materialism.
The poem is structured around two key periods: the “olden days” when faith was simple, and the present day, where the simple faith of the past has been eroded. In the first stanza, the speaker presents an idealized version of the past, where “old men” lived with a strong sense of faith, grounded in their daily work and the rhythms of nature. The imagery here is simple and direct: “They looked to God in daily need,” and “He sowed on mountain side and weald,” suggesting that God was intimately involved in the lives of these men, guiding them through the land they worked, and their struggles were met with submission to His will. Even when faced with hardship, like “barren sod” or the “lightning rod,” the old men accepted it with humility: “God’s will be done, they said, resigned.”
The simplicity of their faith, rooted in personal experience and connection to nature, stands in stark contrast to the more complex, disconnected existence the speaker describes in the second half of the poem. The “old men’s creed,” which was simple, has “crumbled as their dust.” Modern humanity, according to the speaker, has “lost their simple creed,” and in place of it, we have replaced faith with reason and a new, mechanized, impersonal God. The God of the past, who “raised their seed” and guided them in their daily work, has been supplanted by a cold, iron deity: “That iron God, who still unfed / Sits throned with lips that dribble red.” This image is a powerful metaphor for the way in which industrialization and war have corrupted faith — the “iron God” is a product of human hands, not divine will. It is a God that feeds on “sacrificial dead,” a God of destruction and suffering, with no real connection to the natural world or the simple human life.
The speaker goes on to illustrate the horrors this new, mechanized God has unleashed. “Belching their flames between the bars” and “The dripping wheels go roaring by,” the poem evokes the violence and dehumanization of industrial progress, where people become mere cogs in a “mighty juggernaut” that consumes everything in its path. This new God, shaped by human hands, has led us away from the sacred, spiritual relationship the old men had with God. Instead of guiding us towards peace, the new God is a force of war, destruction, and suffering, and the poem’s tone becomes increasingly critical and despairing as it describes the devastation that this industrialization and mechanization bring.
Yet, the poem’s despair is not total. In the final stanzas, there is a call to return to the original, “silent voices of the hills” — the ancient call of the land, of the breathing clay that connects us to the earth. The speaker yearns for the simplicity and purity of the past, but acknowledges the difficulty in returning to that faith. The poem concludes with the speaker asserting that, despite the loss of faith and the erosion of creeds, the “God above all creed waits still.” This implies that, though humanity has wandered far from the simplicity of old, there is still a path back, a return to the essential, spiritual truths that transcended the complexity of human-made systems. The “fallow fields” — untouched, eternal, and fertile — stand as symbols of hope, representing the possibility of redemption and renewal, waiting for humanity to “drive our furrow straight,” to reconnect with the divine and natural order.
Thematically, the poem critiques the loss of spiritual depth in a world increasingly dominated by rationality, progress, and materialism. The shift from simple faith to a mechanized, impersonal existence is depicted as both a loss and a tragedy. The speaker mourns the loss of direct spiritual connection and the violence that has arisen from this loss. Yet there is also a faint hope for renewal, a hope that we can reconnect with the divine — not through external systems of religion or reason, but through a return to simplicity and faith.
The poem’s style supports these themes through its use of direct language and imagery. The juxtaposition between the “old men’s humble part” and the modern world’s “mighty juggernaut” serves as a clear contrast between the simplicity of the past and the destructive complexity of the present. The rhythm of the poem reflects this contrast as well. The early stanzas are steady, almost song-like, evoking the rhythm of the rural work and life being described. As the poem progresses, the rhythm becomes more erratic, mirroring the chaotic, destructive forces of industrialization and modernity.
In conclusion, this poem is a meditation on the loss of faith, the dangers of industrialization and war, and the yearning for a return to simplicity and spiritual purity. It critiques the mechanized world that has replaced the humble faith of the old men and calls for a return to a more natural, divine connection. The speaker, while acknowledging the difficulty of such a return, believes that it is still possible — if we can reconnect with the “breathing clay” and drive our furrow straight once again.