The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes - Volume 1, George MacDonald [universal ebook reader txt] 📗

CONTENTS.


WITHIN AND WITHOUT

A HIDDEN LIFE

A STORY OF THE SEA-SHORE

THE DISCIPLE

THE GOSPEL WOMEN-
1. The Mother Mary
2. The Woman that lifted up her Voice
3. The Mother of Zebedee's Children
4. The Syrophenician Woman
5. The Widow of Nain
6. The Woman whom Satan had bound
7. The Woman who came behind Him in the Crowd
8. The Widow with the Two Mites
9. The Women who ministered unto Him
10. Pilate's Wife
11. The Woman of Samaria
12. Mary Magdalene
13. The Woman in the Temple
14. Martha
15. Mary
16. The Woman that was a Sinner

A BOOK OF SONNETS-
The Burnt-Offering
The Unseen Face
Concerning Jesus
A Memorial of Africa
A.M.D
To Garibaldi, with a Book
To S.F.S
Russell Gurney
To One threatened with Blindness
To Aubrey de Vere
General Gordon
The Chrysalis
The Sweeper of the Floor
Death

ORGAN SONGS-
To A.J. Scott
Light
To A. J. Scott
I would I were a Child
A Prayer for the Past
Longing
I know what Beauty is
Sympathy
The Thank-Offering
Prayer
Rest
O do not leave Me
Blessed are the Meek, for they shall inherit the Earth
Hymn for a Sick Girl
Written for One in sore Pain
A Christmas Carol for 1862
A Christmas Carol
The Sleepless Jesus
Christmas, 1873
Christmas, 1884
An Old Story
A Song for Christmas
To my Aging Friends
Christmas Song of the Old Children
Christmas Meditation
The Old Castle
Christmas Prayer
Song of the Innocents
Christmas Day and Every Day
The Children's Heaven
Rejoice
The Grace of Grace
Antiphon
Dorcas
Marriage Song
Blind Bartimeus
Come unto Me
Morning Hymn
Noontide Hymn
Evening Hymn
The Holy Midnight
Rondel
A Prayer
Home from the Wars
God; not Gift
To any Friend

VIOLIN SONGS-
Hope Deferred
Death
Hard Times
If I were a Monk, and Thou wert a Nun
My Heart
The Flower-Angels
To my Sister
Oh Thou of little Faith
Wild Flowers
Spring Song
Summer Song
Autumn Song
Winter Song
Picture Songs
A Dream Song
At my Window after Sunset
A Father to a Mother
The Temple of God
Going to Sleep
To-Morrow
Foolish Children
Love is Home
Faith
Waiting
Our Ship
My Heart thy Lark
Two in One
Bedtime
A Prayer
A Song Prayer

SONGS OF THE DAYS AND NIGHTS-
Songs of the Summer Days
Songs of the Summer Nights
Songs of the Autumn Days
Songs of the Autumn Nights
Songs of the Winter Days
Songs of the Winter Nights
Songs of the Spring Days
Songs of the Spring Nights

A BOOK OF DREAMS

ROADSIDE POEMS-
Better Things
An Old Sermon with a New Text
Little Elfie
Reciprocity
The Shadows
The Child-Mother
He Heeded Not
The Sheep and the Goat
The Wakeful Sleeper
A Dream of Waking
A Manchester Poem
What the Lord Saith
How shall He Sing who hath No Song
This World
Saint Peter
Zacchaeus
After Thomas Kemp

TO AND OF FRIENDS-
To Lady Noel Byron
To the Same
To Aurelio Saffi
A Thanksgiving for F.D. Maurice
George Rolleston
To Gordon, leaving Khartoum
Song of the Saints and Angels
Failure
To E.G., dedicating a Book
To G.M.T.
In Memoriam Lady Caroline Charteris


WITHIN AND WITHOUT:


A Dramatic Poem.

What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather-
With outward maker's force, or like an inward father.


SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S Arcadia .

Written December and January , 1850-51.

TO L.P.M.D.

Receive thine own; for I and it are thine.
Thou know'st its story; how for forty days-
Weary with sickness and with social haze,
(After thy hands and lips with love divine
Had somewhat soothed me, made the glory shine,
Though with a watery lustre,) more delays
Of blessedness forbid-I took my ways
Into a solitude, Invention's mine;
There thought and wrote, afar, and yet with thee.
Those days gone past, I came, and brought a book;
My child, developed since in limb and look.
It came in shining vapours from the sea,
And in thy stead sung low sweet songs to me,
When the red life-blood labour would not brook.


May , 1855.


WITHIN AND WITHOUT


PART I.

Go thou into thy closet; shut thy door;
And pray to Him in secret: He will hear.
But think not thou, by one wild bound, to clear
The numberless ascensions, more and more,
Of starry stairs that must be climbed, before
Thou comest to the Father's likeness near,
And bendest down to kiss the feet so dear
That, step by step, their mounting flights passed o'er.
Be thou content if on thy weary need
There falls a sense of showers and of the spring;
A hope that makes it possible to fling
Sickness aside, and go and do the deed;
For highest aspiration will not lead
Unto the calm beyond all questioning.

SCENE I.- A cell in a convent . JULIAN alone .

Julian .
Evening again slow creeping like a death!
And the red sunbeams fading from the wall,
On which they flung a sky, with streaks and bars
Of the poor window-pane that let them in,
For clouds and shadings of the mimic heaven!
Soul of my cell, they part, no more to come.
But what is light to me, while I am dark!
And yet they strangely draw me, those faint hues,
Reflected flushes from the Evening's face,
Which as a bride, with glowing arms outstretched,
Takes to her blushing heaven him who has left
His chamber in the dim deserted east.
Through walls and hills I see it! The rosy sea!
The radiant head half-sunk! A pool of light,
As the blue globe had by a blow been broken,
And the insphered glory bubbled forth!
Or the sun were a splendid water-bird,
That flying furrowed with its golden feet
A flashing wake over the waves, and home!
Lo there!-Alas, the dull blank wall!-High up,
The window-pane a dead gray eye! and night
Come on me like a thief!-Ah, well! the sun
Has always made me sad! I'll go and pray:
The terror of the night begins with prayer.

( Vesper bell .)
Call them that need thee; I need not thy summons;
My knees would not so pain me when I kneel,
If only at thy voice my prayer awoke.
I will not to the chapel. When I find Him,
Then will I praise him from the heights of peace;
But now my soul is as a speck of life
Cast on the deserts of eternity;
A hungering and a thirsting, nothing more.
I am as a child new-born, its mother dead,
Its father far away beyond the seas.
Blindly I stretch my arms and seek for him:
He goeth by me, and I see him not.
I cry to him: as if I sprinkled ashes,
My prayers fall back in dust upon my soul.

( Choir and organ-music .)
I bless you, sweet sounds, for your visiting.
What friends I have! Prismatic harmonies
Have just departed in the sun's bright coach,
And fair, convolved sounds troop in to me,
Stealing my soul with faint deliciousness.
Would they took shapes! What levees I should hold!
How should my cell be filled with wavering forms!
Louder they grow, each swelling higher, higher;
Trembling and hesitating to float off,
As bright air-bubbles linger, that a boy
Blows, with their interchanging, wood-dove-hues,
Just throbbing to their flight, like them to die.
-Gone now! Gone to the Hades of dead loves!
Is it for this that I have left the world?-
Left what, poor fool? Is this, then, all that comes
Of that night when the closing door fell dumb
On music and on voices, and I went
Forth from the ordered tumult of the dance,
Under the clear cope of the moonless night,
Wandering away without the city-walls,
Between the silent meadows and the stars,
Till something woke in me, and moved my spirit,
And of themselves my thoughts turned toward God;
When straight within my soul I felt as if
An eye was opened; but I knew not whether
'Twas I that saw, or God that looked on me?
It closed again, and darkness fell; but not
To hide the memory; that, in many failings
Of spirit and of purpose, still returned;
And I came here at last to search for God.
Would I could find him! Oh, what quiet content
Would then absorb my heart, yet leave it free!

A knock at the door. Enter Brother ROBERT with a light .

Robert