3 Trips to Lord Jesus's Blood Bank: "Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb?"

Anyone who has seen "Night of the Hunter," the 1955 film starring Robert Mitchum as a psychopathic preacher in pursuit of two children, will remember him constantly singing, "Leaning On the Everlasting Arms [of the Cross]." Well, it turns out the hymn was written by a Pennsylvania Presbyterian minister, Elisha Hoffman, in the late 1800s, composer of what must be a one of the stoutest Guinness Book of Records, 2000 or so. Among Hoffman's other notable hymns is one with equally gothic associations in my mind, "Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb?" 

The reason, besides the mere fearful idea of drinking or drowning in Christ's cleansing sacrificial blood, is its, to me,  sardonic use by Charles Ives in his 1914 song-setting of Vachel Lindsay's poem, "General William Booth Enters Heaven." The poem was written as an elegiac ode to General William Booth, the British Methodist minister who founded the Salvation Army in 1865, and became its first commander ("General") in 1878--the year Hoffman wrote "Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb?" Booth died in 1912 and the poem, written that year, gained instant popularity when published in 1913. Throughout the text, there are numerous references to Hoffman's hymn.

Lindsay's poem has always had ambiguous motives and meanings for me. In it, he describes Booth leading a ragtag army of bedraggled sinners and sufferers into Heaven where they are greeted by Jesus who transforms them into what might be called "heavenly sights for un-sore eyes." Booth, whom Lindsay notes "died blind," does not "see" Jesus come out "Stretched . . . hands above the passing poor." Instead, he leads "his queer ones / Round and round the mighty court-house square." As if impatient with the lack of what should be, I imagine, instant recognition of and salvation by the Lord, Jesus simply does a mass healing of Booth's "blear review" and they march on "spotless, clad in raiment new." There, for me, is the appeal and danger of evangelism. Christ is, to these believers, a carte blanche savior of souls. "Sin now, don't [have to] pay later."

Jesus came from out the court-house door,    
Stretched his hands above the passing poor.    
Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there    
Round and round the mighty court-house square.    
Yet in an instant all that blear review    
Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new.    
The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled    
And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world.    

Ives did not set Lindsay's entire poem (apparently he used an excerpt that he saw in a newspaper review of Lindsay's book which contained the poem), but he is literally faithful to the instructions he saw and to the spirit of the poem. Every recurrence of the refrain "Are you washed in the blood . . ." clashes with the song, which ends with one final repeat for the listener, as if to ask, "And what about you?" Ives was a deeply religious man and his music is studded with hymn quotes. But there is a savagery to his setting that makes me wonder if WWI had something to do with the composition. Booth's bedraggled band would have been joined with thousands of civilian and soldier dead--and Christ's endless blood bank would have been seriously drained. So it is hard for me not to see a double diabolical meaning to the idea of "army" in Ives' adaptation. The booming bass drum is certainly militaristic in this composition.

Okay, why, out of the blue, am I sending Charles Ives' "General William Booth Enters Heaven"? You have my Vancouver friend, Danny Kasowitz to thank or blame for this. Last night, after watching a new Paul Schrader film, "First Reformed," Danny sent me a version of "Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb" by the Antrim Mennonite Choir (1).  I don't know whether this is taken from the soundtrack or not, but I'm sending it as an MP3 file. To give the hymn context, let me quote from the movie's on-line publicity site, which says the movie is about "Reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) . . . a solitary, middle-aged parish pastor at a small Dutch Reform church in upstate New York on the cusp of celebrating its 250th anniversary. Once a stop on the Underground Railroad, the church is now a tourist attraction catering to a dwindling congregation, eclipsed by its nearby parent church, Abundant Life, with its state-of-the-art facilities and 5,000-strong flock." 

It had been years since I listened to the hymn, and then only in a 1927 "roots" version by Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters (2). These straight versions--the first exuberantly reverential and the second rustic and rollicking--beckoned me to excavate several versions of Ives' song. During archeology, I discovered an orchestral arrangement by Ives' close friend, contemporary, and fellow composer, John J. Becker, written in 1934 for baritone, chorus and chamber orchestra. Ives, who had long tried unsuccessfully to set the song for large forces, must have been elated. The arrangement is much transmission as transcription. Thomas Hampson, who has made frequent recordings of Ives' songs, is the featured baritone. 

Get ready for a transmogrification of Hoffman's hymn. Three versions of "Are You Washed In the Blood of the Lamb?" await you here:

https://we.tl/t-fY1ZDb5IvC

General William Booth Enters into Heaven

BY VACHEL LINDSAY

[To be sung to the tune of The Blood of the Lamb with indicated instrument]

[BASS DRUM BEATEN LOUDLY] 
Booth led boldly with his big bass drum—    
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)    
The Saints smiled gravely and they said: “He’s come.”    
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)    
Walking lepers followed, rank on rank,    
Lurching bravoes from the ditches dank,    
Drabs from the alleyways and drug fiends pale—    
Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail:—    
Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath,    
Unwashed legions with the ways of Death—    
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)    

[BANJOS] 
Every slum had sent its half-a-score    
The round world over. (Booth had groaned for more.)    
Every banner that the wide world flies    
Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes.    
Big-voiced lasses made their banjos bang,    
Tranced, fanatical they shrieked and sang:—    
“Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”    
Hallelujah! It was queer to see    
Bull-necked convicts with that land make free.    
Loons with trumpets blowed a blare, blare, blare    
On, on upward thro’ the golden air!    
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)    

[BASS DRUM SLOWER AND SOFTER] 
Booth died blind and still by Faith he trod,    
Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God.    
Booth led boldly, and he looked the chief    
Eagle countenance in sharp relief,    
Beard a-flying, air of high command    
Unabated in that holy land.    

[SWEET FLUTE MUSIC] 
Jesus came from out the court-house door,    
Stretched his hands above the passing poor.    
Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there    
Round and round the mighty court-house square.    
Yet in an instant all that blear review    
Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new.    
The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled    
And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world.    

[BASS DRUM LOUDER] 
Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole!    
Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl!    
Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean,    
Rulers of empires, and of forests green!    

[GRAND CHORUS OF ALL INSTRUMENTS. 
TAMBOURINES TO THE FOREGROUND] 
The hosts were sandalled, and their wings were fire!    
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)    
But their noise played havoc with the angel-choir.    
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)    
O shout Salvation! It was good to see    
Kings and Princes by the Lamb set free.    
The banjos rattled and the tambourines    
Jing-jing-jingled in the hands of Queens.    

[REVERENTLY SUNG. NO INSTRUMENTS] 
And when Booth halted by the curb for prayer    
He saw his Master thro’ the flag-filled air.    
Christ came gently with a robe and crown    
For Booth the soldier, while the throng knelt down.    
He saw King Jesus. They were face to face,    
And he knelt a-weeping in that holy place.    
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? 

YOU ONLY LIVE THRICE

1
Once in the rarest of whiles
you crack
                an egg
with a double-yolk.

Cotton Mather said
such things
are Signs
meant for pondering
by the beholder.

Be held by what you see
if needs be

all

day

and

night

or however long

it takes

to be known.


2
The double-yolked egg
was instant correlative
for the twin despairs
of my life

1    as Jew
2    as American

yoked to Zionism
yoked to the idea that my country would one day
stand for more than
war and rapacity


3
Zion has long invited puns
involving cyanide.

A Jews-only paradise
was to my Communist college rabbi-mentor
a world where liberated Woolworth's restaurant counters
paid secret homage to the racism
that led to their occupation.

Israel was cheating, he explained:
Sure, you can order coffee and a sandwich,
sure, you can be assured of seating,
he said,
because our people own the place.

What do you mean? I demanded.

Freedom based on exclusivity
is a form of anti-semitism
that denies a nostalgia for captivity. 
This makes every Palestinian 
a Jew-in waiting
living under permanent, perpetual curfew.



4
By 1967
my father had switched his heavenly residence on earth
from Moscow to Tel Aviv.

During the Seven Day War in May,
he turned his study into a war room.
There he pinned tiny Israeli flags
to each new stolen sector
of Palestinian land
on a gigantic map.
When you turned on a fan
the flags fluttered
and sounded like pinwheels.

I objected by telling him
that Israel had used napalm
in support of land gain.
The blood drained from his face
and went into the fists
he raised to my face.
We Jews fight honorably, he screamed
his breath meeting mine.

He was still stronger than me then.
If we had come to blows,
father would have vanquished son.
But my dad was also a Liberal:
We Jews leave the dirty fighting 
to the Americans in Vietnam.



5
Vietnam was still common ground
to spit on and despise
while my father and I fought bitterly
over Palestine.

Why don't you ever call it Israel? he would chide.

Because it isn't, I would always answer.

It still isn't.  And now
will never be.



6
So we shared the deep-shaft sorrow
of America
until his death.

Colonization of Palestine
never tormented him as it tormented me.
In time, we learned to stop talking
about what I once told him in anger was
"the Jewish solution to the Jewish problem."
I expected him to curse me for saying that.
Instead, he conceded my irony.
After 5000 years we Jews have finally taken matters
into their own hands, he said.

I reminded him of Partition.
Didn't they try that in India? he asked caustically.
And what did it get the Hindus? 
A bullet in Gandhi's head and rioting Muslims.

He was shot by a Muslim, I corrected.

My point exactly, he said,
Partition was and always is a mistake.
One nation, one people. 
Every people need their own flag to salute.




7
I visited the Wailing Wall in May 1987,
2 years before my father's death.
A rabbi kept offering me a yarmulke
and urging me toward the wall.
I watched as dozens of Jews
dobbined and banged their heads against its stones.
They seemed to stand captives to their cries
as if being Jewish was like living in solitary confinement.
I wondered
as some stuffed letters between crevices
who collected the daily mail
to ancestors
and when.
The wall seemed the ruin
of a post office
no more prophets
would use for special delivery
or deliverance.


8
I fled the wall,
barely able to stifle my disgust.
Why do they cry and carry on like that?
I asked my guide, a Jew from Morocco,
who had warned me "of the dangers
of taking Jerusalem too seriously":
They got their land. Why aren't they happy and grateful?

Our people are exhibitionists, he said
when I returned to his side near some steep steps
leading to a terrace that overlooked the wall.
They use the Wall
to make shows of being Jewish.

I persisted, Does being Jewish forbid jumping with joy
to have finally reached the wall?

Old habits are hard to break, he answered.
Melancholia is a hereditary trait.



7
Maybe some day
I will break an egg with a triple yolk,
sign of synthesis
and identity beholden to nothing
that can take form
or seek something missing
or hidden
from itself.

The hidden sees itself
revealed in everything it names
so it may be clearly known
and told to other.



8
Gone / foregone
in conclusion:
Cloud-covered moon
whose brightness blinded.
Seethe of surf
that now lulls and lingers.
Observant eye and fine-tuned ear
that invite union
of mind and matter
in everything seen
and sung.

Beholden to
cradle of perception
and fulcrum of creation.

The first people
are the last people
chosen for no other purpose
but to outgrow
the illusion
there are others
than one's deepest self
and soul.

--Ardmore, January 9-10, 2018

Paul Blackburn and the Art of Remembrance

My friend-since-college Ron Caplan recently published a book on a Cape Breton obituary poet, Andrew Dunphy, called "A Stone for Andrew Dunphy." It isn't until the last chapter that the reader realizes the "Stone" is the book itself--a gravestone made of deep scholarship and reverent study of this man who wrote elegies on request for cape residents. Ron's book has been in and on my mind since finishing it over a month ago. I wondered if the tradition of narrative rhyme about which he writes so eloquently had continuance of some sort in my/our time. Something in me knew it did but that it wasn't a literal kind that sought to preserve a tradition in neo-classical mimicry. I had to perform my own ancestry.com search based on complex, zigzagging reading. Not surprisingly, I found the bequeathal was far more lateral, oblique and transformed in order to endure long transport and possibly harsh transplant in urbanized American soil. That poem, I believe, is Paul Blackburn's "The Selection of Heaven," written in 1963 for the poet's grandparents--Hannah, 87, and John Henry, 88, Blackburn (who died March 23rd and April 16th, 1963)--and who otherwise would have gone, as Dunphy's subjects would have, unremarked and unsung.

Here is Section 16 written for John Henry, from this masterpiece of modern American poetry. Blackburn has become a constant companion, his writing acting as a seeing-eye dog for the streets and straits of my country. God bless him. Ron and I had beers with Paul when he came to read at Temple University around 1967. Remember, dear friend. 

My love to all and my prayer for lives worthy of commentary like this. 

16.  w o r d s    :     should have been spoken at graveside

There are no true voices anymore, John 
Henry, you knucklehead, you hard-
headed, stiff-backed, tough-minded old man, your 
                            mouth is clenched tight for good 
                            it is a solid line

from under your sharpened nose around your pointed chin, above
                                                                                           that
the strong, kind, (remembered), and finally closed eyes, 
the dead tissues under the skull that were your brain 
softened finally with your      88        years

into a forgetfulness your children could 
relate to, could pity, could and did 
expiate themselves upon, so
                           accept their own lives

for what they had become or grown to, 
John, you knucklehead, you bonehead, in 
the old photographs you are more often
                           scowling, when the others
are smiling bravely into the bright sun.

                                                         You quarreled
with everyone you loved and were proud
when your children fought you back with brain and spirit 
and were hurt, of course you were hurt
                        by it, and loved them     .       You 
had made them irrevocably yours you would have said God's

and that's not true, and your mouth is closed for good
upon the air of this world, your hands     not
                        folded in eternity as that 
                        cliche-ridden, pompous, minister 
friend of yours who did you final service might 
have said had he the gift of words, but 
clenched, holding your heaven to you;
swollen farmer's hands that had been kinder than your mind was 
clenched in eternity the rock of your mind
that could not crack and open but
still clenched dissolved under the rain of years

the head still,
straight white hair still handsome     .       4 
generations gathered round a coffin yesterday to pay 
what truly was respect and sometimes love,     the 
different qualities of flesh
                                  from ruined to what
                         renews itself each day, and grows, John, 
stood there and did you honor     .     Rocks

wear away under the rain    .     Flesh is tough 
          the spirit
resilient     .     tougher than flesh   .    They
said you looked natural 
and in their mouths it 
was comforting cliché    .     The words 
were truer than they knew, you still looked 
                        stiff-backed, hard-headed, 
                        but the spirit gone, that blur,
a peace

E A R T H    T O     E A R T H

GOD,
be here at this graveside .
Not in the cut flowers the undertakers' men heaped up 
but in the new forsythia, red maple
                           buds, magnolia, be 
                           in the spring earth 
will heap this grave, grow new grass over it, 
golden green of willow starting fresh    .     be 
                           in the spring earth with John, 
your faithful servant,
where he will lie
next to Hannah as he did in life, her 
                           eternal lover     .      Lock them 
                           forever into this hillside
facing the Acushnet gulls settle on, 
         wheel over crying, hear them in the 
distance .

         Smoke rises
from between my forefinger
and middlefinger    .     Wind on this 
Cold spring hillside sweeps it off 
barely visible in the sunlight

the ashes
fall upon new grass .

A S H E S     TO     A S H E S

      John,
forgive the carpet of phoney grass
                           too dark for the season
the undertakers spread beneath your
coffin for this moment   .    We have 
seen you to this hillside, let it be 
enough    .     Forgive
the Reverend Doctor his recitation
of    2     Edgar Guest poems yesterday,   I
figured I could stand it if you could   .   The rain
of dirt and pebbles will be real enough . 
                            fresh clods set in
                            after you have settled    .     Rain 
                                               fructifies,
                                               but will wear away . 
                                                      ROCK
The committing ceremony had the 
dignity of its own
                         words, yesterday,
despite the use of flowers with their snapped-off heads 
instead of fistfuls of earth    .     EARTH  .
When the diggers end the job, let
the first 3 shovelsful of spring earth
be my shovelsful, let it be enough   .

D U S T    TO    D U S T

                                consigning    .     I
have not willed the occasion for these words 
which cry themselves like hunting gulls 
my mouth flapping open     .      GOD, 
welcome your servant John Henry
into whatever Paradise he thought existed, 
offer him
the best accomodation that you have for such a 
                                         lover of the mind     .     God 
                                         knows he has earned it,
                                  twice over  .
Let there be soft
                                  wind
where he is, let him hear gulls cry 
above the
bridge,
                                  and be home.