In “The Club Secretary,” a story by Lord Dunsany, the narrator finds himself in the afterlife, wandering the buildings and the grounds of an exclusive club, just for great poets who have died. It sounds like just the sort of club where you would like to be able to spend all eternity, listening to conversations between, say, Shakespeare and Keats; but of course, the only way to gain admittance is to have written great poetry.

The narrator strikes up a conversation with the club secretary. It’s an enviable post, and how did he become the club’s secretary? He had written just one line of great poetry — “A rose-red city, half old as time” — not enough for him to gain admittance as a full member, but enough to get him the post as secretary.

I read that story more than thirty years ago, and I still fantasize about such a club. Who would make it in as a full member? And who else would be on staff? I know I would never qualify, but I suspect Edwin Markham would be one of the janitors, because of one quatrain that he wrote:

They drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took them in.

Even though the rest of Markham’s poetry is unreadable, I think this short verse is actually pretty good; the sentiment is not as trite as it sounds at first, and it’s a poem that has stuck with me for some years now. Although I admit I’m biassed because Markham was a Universalist, and for me this quatrain sums up the best of the Universalist impulse towards radical love.

And if there’s a great poets club in the afterlife, do you think there might be a non-fiction writers club? I would never gain admittance as a full member, but if I’m lucky someday I might write one paragraph of non-fiction good enough to get me a job as one of the groundskeepers.