Twilight in the Alps

I love the hour that comes, with dusky hair
And dewy feet, along the Alpine dells
To lead the cattle forth. A thousand bells
Go chiming after her across the fair
And flowery uplands, while the rosy flare
Of sunset on the snowy mountain dwells,
And valleys darken, and the drowsy spells
Of peace are woven through the purple air.

Dear is the magic of this hour: she seems
To walk before the dark by falling rills,
And lend a sweeter song to hidden streams;
She opens all the doors of night, and fills
With moving bells the music of my dreams,
That wander far among the sleeping hills.

Henry Van Dyke

Gstaad, AUGUST, 1909.

“‘Twilight in the alps” is a poem that describes the time of evening which is known a “Twilight”. The poet says that he loves this hour, he further goes on to describe how the time of Twilight is so spectacular especially in the alps. The poet describes the goings on when it is the hour of Twilight in the alps. The poet sees cattle who are going back home after grazing in the day, the sound of the bells, their chime is so melodious. The poet is simply besotted with the picture nature paints during the time of Twilight. He calls the ray of the setting sun “rosy flare” which is absolutely amazing. He says that when valleys darken after the sun is set, there is almost a feeling of drowsy peace that dwells in the purple air. The first stanza of the poem is simply amazing; it is like a rhythm, a soothing effect when you read it. The words are poured in such a way as if they were meant to flow.

The poet personifies the hour of Twilight into a woman. Van Dyke says that this time of Twilight is so beautiful that it seems as if a woman (Twilight) is walking through the falling rills, the time of Twilight is musical the atmosphere is such that it seems to be a piece of music that is flowing around you and around the nature as well.  Again the poet personifies the hour of Twilight into a woman when he says that “she opens all the doors of night”; by which he means to say that the arrival of the time of Twilight Is so swift it seems as if a door is opening and blending into the atmosphere, and this is such a rhythmic view that is seems as if bells are ringing that reaches far across the sleeping hills. The alps are so silent and so still that it seems as if Twilight is the one that’s moving around, wrapping herself around the hills.

The poem is a Sonnet. The poem is such a beautiful incarnation of Nature. The sound of the poem would automatically put you at ease and make you a lover of Nature. The poem is rhythmic, it seems as if the words are flowing and along with the words the readers are flowing too; entranced with the magic of the hour of Twilight.

A Mile With Me

O who will walk a mile with me
Along life's merry way?
A comrade blithe and full of glee,
Who dares to laugh out loud and free,
And let his frolic fancy play,
Like a happy child, through the flowers gay
That fill the field and fringe the way
Where he walks a mile with me.

And who will walk a mile with me
Along life's weary way?
A friend whose heart has eyes to see
The stars shine out o'er the darkening lea,
And the quiet rest at the end o' the day,--
A friend who knows, and dares to say,
The brave, sweet words that cheer the way
Where he walks a mile with me.

With such a comrade, such a friend,
I fain would walk till journeys end,
Through summer sunshine, winter rain,
And then?--Farewell, we shall meet again!

Henry Van Dyke

DECEMBER 1902.

“Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”- Albert Camus.

 A Mile With Me is a beautiful poem by Henry Van Dyke. This poem is based on friendship and camaraderie. The poet raises a question “who will walk a mile with me?” but then in the next line he states the kind of person he wants to spend the wonderful and long journey of his life with. The poet knows that life is not easy it has its hard and easy times, its highs and lows its pros and cons but when you have a friend, comrade with you who is ready to share each and every moment of this eventful life that is when life is beautiful, that is when life is complete.

The poet wants a happy and joyous comrade who is free, who does not have a fear in the world. A friend who would not hesitate to indulge into play like a child along the field and that is where they would complete a part of the journey of their lives. The poet desires for a friend who would be there with him in happy times, when life is good; he wants to share the joy with this comrade.

The poet wonders whether who will walk a mile with him when life is weary. He wants such a friend who is not only willing to be a part of his happy days but also the sad and unhappy ones. A friend who will notice when the poet is in pain, when there is nothing to beat the eerie silence of the night, a friend who will notice the sorrow of the poet and try to cheer him up with the sweet words of friendship and that’s when they complete another journey of their life.  The poet says that a true friend is one who helps you and is there for you in all times, supports you through anything, he will praise you when you are right, scold you when you are wrong, cry with you when you are sad and laugh along with you through the happiness.

The poet concludes by saying that with such a friend; he would spend his whole life’s journey, through the seasons through the emotions; but their journey doesn’t just end here it would continue in their afterlife as well and in their afterlife is when they will meet again. The poet says that the friendship doesn’t end with life and death; it continues till the time your friend is with you throughout even if it’s after death.

The poem is a lyric. “Lyric poetry is usually a form of poetry with rhyming schemes that express personal feelings.”

This little book consists of a single poem, called "A Mile with Me" by Henry Van Dyke.
Inside this book, along with the poem are beautiful lithographed landscape illustrations.
Measuring 4 by 8 inches, this hardcover book is 12 pages long and was published in 1911 by the Hayes Lithographing Co. of Buffalo, New York. 

A Child in the Garden

When to the garden of untroubled thought
I came of late, and saw the open door,
And wished again to enter, and explore
The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought,
And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught,
It seemed some purer voice must speak before
I dared to tread that garden loved of yore,
That Eden lost unknown and found unsought.

Then just within the gate I saw a child, --
A stranger-child, yet to my heart most dear;
He held his hands to me, and softly smiled
With eyes that knew no shade of sin or fear:
"Come in," he said, "and play awhile with me;"
"I am the little child you used to be."

Henry Van Dyke

JANUARY -1903.

“In every real man, a child is hidden that wants to play” –  Friedrich Nietzsche.

‘’The sun illuminates only the eyes of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child”- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The two beautiful quotes remind me of the poem a child in the garden by Henry Van Dyke. The poem is a sonnet which relays how pure, untroubled, innocent and fearless children are. The poet probably wants to go back to his childhood where everything was magical and simple without the complications of adult life.

Henry Van Dyke describes the kingdom of childhood as “the garden of untroubled thought”. Through this beautiful poem he wishes to re-enter the Garden of Eden, which is the biblical garden of God. Van Dyke describes the Garden of Eden in words of poetry which makes the imagination of the reader make pictorial depictions of the Garden, his description of the garden is rhythmic, the way he melds nature and human like qualities of innocence and pure voice is exceptional. He uses words like sweet, wild, stainless, untroubled and innocence to depict how beautiful the garden is, Van Dyke’s poetry gives the reader’s imagination a boost to paint out their own version of Eden in their minds.

Through his poem, Henry Van Dyke probably wants to bring about the hard reality of life wherein when a child grows he quits childish things, adults become so busy to run the race of life that they forget to notice the marvelous little things that life has to offer. When the poet tries to go into the garden through the open door he finds the Garden of Eden and that is when realization hits him that was not lost to him; but it came to him without him having to search for it and at precisely the time when he needed it at most. The poem is a sonnet which means that it is divided into two parts. The first part consists of eight lines which is called octave and the last six lines are called sestet. In a sonnet the octave and the sestet contain two different ideas; likewise; in this poem the 1^st stanza describes the Garden of Eden and the innocence of childhood and in the 2^nd stanza it talks about an incident where the poet comes across a boy when he is in the Garden.

In the second stanza of the poem the poet sees a child just beyond the gate of the Garden of Eden, the child seems to be a stranger to the poet; yet there is something that seems to be familiar about him. The child then beckons the poet to come play with him and the poet complies. The child is the epitome of purity and innocence. The child is probably a figment of the poet’s imagination because the child is the past of the poet; the child reminds the poet of his older days when he was not caught up with the worldly affairs and was just a small boy who wasn't part of harsh and cruel reality of the world. The poem is a reminder to every adult who is so caught up in their life that they have lost the purity from the child residing in each one of them and as a very famous quote and one of my personal favorites by Edna St. Vincent Millay says; “childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.”

THE TIMES DURING THE LIFE OF HENRY VAN DYKE:-

Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy:

“The Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy was a religious controversy in the 1920s and 30s within the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America that later created divisions in most American Christian denominations as well. The major American denomination was torn by conflict over the issues of theology and ecclesiology. Underneath those struggles lay profound concerns about the role of Christianity in the culture and how that role was to be expressed.”

The Controversy began in 1922 due to a sermon by a well-recognized spokesman, Harry Emerson Fosdick was preaching by special permission in First Presbyterian Church, New York, delivered his sermon "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" which brought to the surface the differences between liberal and conservative Christians. The end of this controversy was by J. Gresham Machen and a number of other conservative Presbyterian theologians and clergymen who left their denomination in 1936 to establish the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

 The Old-Side–New-Side Split (1741–58) and the Old-School–New-School Split (1838–69):

The Old Side-New Side Controversy lead to the Presbyterian Church bring divided in 1741 into an Old Side and New Side. The two churches reunified later in 1758. The Old School–New School Controversy lead to the Presbyterian Church being split into two denominations. These denominations were further divided into northern and southern halves due to slavery. In 1869-70 the New School and Old School were reunited in the north which led to the formation of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

The rise of Higher Criticism and the Briggs Affair, 1880–93:

American Presbyterians first became aware of Higher Criticism also known as the Historical-Critical method during the development of the German academy. Charles Briggs, had studied Higher Criticism in Germany. In his inaugural speech upon being made Professor of Hebrew at Union Theological Seminary in 1876 was the first hint of Higher Criticism within American Presbyterianism. Briggs was the founder of the Presbyterian review in 1880 along with A. A. Hodge, president of Princeton Theological Seminary .problems occurred when in 1889 B. B. Warfield became co-editor and refused to publish one of Briggs' articles, which became  an important  turning point.

Briggs was later appointed as Union's first-ever Professor of Biblical Theology. "The Authority of Holy Scripture” was his address, in which he announced that “Higher Criticism had proven that Moses did not write the Pentateuch; that Ezra did not write Ezra, Chronicles or Nehemiah; Jeremiah did not write the books of Kings or the Lamentations; David only wrote a few of the Psalms; Solomon did not write the Song of Solomon or Ecclesiastes and only a few Proverbs; and Isaiah did not write half of the book of Isaiah.

The movement to revise the Westminster Confession of Faith, 1900–1910: 

Henry van Dyke started a movement of modernists and New Schoolers to revise the Westminster Confession of Faith. Van Dyke had been trying to affirm that all dying infants go to heaven; to say that God loved the whole world and to affirm that Christ atoned for all mankind. In 1901,van dyke chaired a 25-man committee. In 1901, he drew up a non-binding summary of the church's faith, which mentioned that God's love of all mankind; and also denied that the Pope was the Antichrist. This was adopted by General Assembly in 1902 and rectified by the presbyteries in 1904.

Other important social dilemmas during the life of Henry Van Dyke:-

1.    The Doctrinal Deliverance of 1910 (a.k.a. The Five Fundamentals)

2.   The Fundamentals and "Back to Fundamentals”

3.   Ecumenism, 1908–21

4.   "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" (1922)

5.   William Jennings Bryan and the General Assembly of 1923

6.   The General Assembly of 1923, 24, 25 and  The Special Commission of 1925 and the General Assembly of 1926

7.    The Auburn Affirmation (1923–24)

8.   The General Assembly of 1924

9.   The General Assembly of 1925

10.The Scopes Trial (1925)

11.  The Battle for Princeton Theological Seminary, 1926–29

An architect of happiness

Henry Jackson Van Dyke was a Presbyterian Minister, his father himself being a Presbyterian Clergyman inspired Van Dyke a lot, though he was not a “model child”, his father always commented, “Paul was born good, but Henry was saved by grace”. Van dyke with his friend W.S Macy went to Red River Valley wheat farms In September 1879 where he saw problems with large agricultural systems that were depleting the land and exploiting migrant labor. With his friend Macy he also did an article for Harper's Monthly Magazine, in the May 1880 issue. He was already a part of the literary field by the year 1888 with his sermon "National Sin of Literary Piracy," which attacked the American habit of printing pirated copies of foreign books, quite ironically, Van Dyke's first copy of a book by Tennyson, Enoch Arden, ect. (1864), was a pirated edition, which he had purchased for fifty cents when he was just fourteen. Van Dyke ranked Tennyson 3rd among the English poets after William Shakespeare and John Milton, who proved to be a guiding factor during his life. Relaying an incident from his life, in 1889 when his first book of criticism, The Poetry of Tennyson, was published, he sent his collection of critical articles on Tennyson to the eighty-year-old poet, to which Tennyson responded with a letter of thanks along with some autobiographical notes, and corrections in the 2nd edition. Van Dyke visited Tennyson on 18th August 1892, While Tennyson took his afternoon nap, Van Dyke listened to recordings of Tennyson reading his own poetry, after which Tennyson personally read Maud to him. This incident lead into Van Dyke changing his opinion of the poem in the 3rd edition of his book.

 Henry van dyke’s “Little Rivers” (1895), was a collection of essays which talked about the value of the outdoors in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau, John Burroughs, and John Muir. Often Van Dyke's short stories resembled parables, which can be seen in his “The Story of the Other Wise Man” (1896), which was actually read as a Christmas sermon in his church and which was further published in Harper's Monthly Christmas issue of 1892. Later in life, Van Dyke agreed to accept a chair as Professor of English Literature at Princeton in 1900. Henry Van Dyke's status as a literary critic was good throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, became gradually less in the 1920s. Some of van dyke’s work remained popular with the general public but most critics view him as a man of “Victorian taste” whose thinking toward the art of literature was too narrow and whose Christianity sat perhaps too easily on his shoulders, yet, the man Helen Keller called "an architect of happiness" achieved a lot of recognition for his work, he was an influential and powerful speaker and writer who tried to narrow down the gap created by World War I and contend positively with a world.

Some of Henry Van Dyke’s works include:

• The Reality of Religion. New York: Scribner’s, 1884.
• The Story of the Psalms. New York: Scribner’s, 1887.
• The Gospel of an Age of Doubt. New York: Macmillan, 1896.
• The First Christmas Tree. New York: Scribner’s, 1897.
• The Friendly Year. New York: Scribner’s, 1900.
• The Ruling Passion. New York: Scribner’s, 1901.
• The Blue Flower. New York: Scribner’s, 1902.
• Days Off, and Other Digressions. New York: Scribner’s, 1907.
• Fighting for Peace. New York: Scribner’s, 1917.
• Half Told Tales. New York: Scribner’s, 1925.
• The Man Behind the Book: Essays in Understanding. New York: Scribner’s, 1929.