The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes - Volume 2, George MacDonald [8 ebook reader TXT] 📗

cell Smiles with an unsuspected loveliness.

-"A prison-and yet from door and window-bar
I catch a thousand breaths of his sweet air!
Even to me his days and nights are fair! He shows me many a flower and many a star! And though I mourn and he is very far,
He does not kill the hope that reaches there!"


SHEW US THE FATHER .

"Shew us the Father." Chiming stars of space,
And lives that fit the worlds, and means and powers,
A Thought that holds them up reveal to ours- A Wisdom we have been made wise to trace. And, looking out from sweetest Nature's face,
From sunsets, moonlights, rivers, hills, and flowers,
Infinite love and beauty, all the hours, Woo men that love them with divinest grace; And to the depths of all the answering soul
High Justice speaks, and calls the world her own;
And yet we long, and yet we have not known The very Father's face who means the whole!
Shew us the Father! Nature, conscience, love
Revealed in beauty, is there One above?


THE PINAFORE .

When peevish flaws his soul have stirred
To fretful tears for crossed desires, Obedient to his mother's word
My child to banishment retires.

As disappears the moon, when wind
Heaps miles of mist her visage o'er, So vanisheth his face behind
The cloud of his white pinafore.

I cannot then come near my child-
A gulf between of gainful loss; He to the infinite exiled-
I waiting, for I cannot cross.

Ah then, what wonder, passing show,
The Isis-veil behind it brings- Like that self-coffined creatures know,
Remembering legs, foreseeing wings!

Mysterious moment! When or how
Is the bewildering change begun? Hid in far deeps the awful now
When turns his being to the sun!

A light goes up behind his eyes,
A still small voice behind his ears; A listing wind about him sighs,
And lo the inner landscape clears!

Hid by that screen, a wondrous shine
Is gathering for a sweet surprise; As Moses grew, in dark divine,
Too radiant for his people's eyes.

For when the garment sinks again,
Outbeams a brow of heavenly wile, Clear as a morning after rain,
And sunny with a perfect smile.

Oh, would that I the secret knew
Of hiding from my evil part, And turning to the lovely true
The open windows of my heart!

Lord, in thy skirt, love's tender gaol,
Hide thou my selfish heart's disgrace; Fill me with light, and then unveil
To friend and foe a friendly face.


THE PRISM .

I.

A pool of broken sunbeams lay
Upon the passage-floor, Radiant and rich, profound and gay
As ever diamond bore.

Small, flitting hands a handkerchief
Spread like a cunning trap: Prone lay the gorgeous jewel-sheaf
In the glory-gleaner's lap!

Deftly she folded up the prize,
With lovely avarice; Like one whom having had made wise,
She bore it off in bliss.

But ah, when for her prisoned gems
She peeped, to prove them there, No glories broken from their stems
Lay in the kerchief bare!

For still, outside the nursery door,
The bright persistency, A molten diadem on the floor,
Lay burning wondrously.

II.

How oft have I laid fold from fold
And peered into my mind- To see of all the purple and gold
Not one gleam left behind!

The best of gifts will not be stored:
The manna of yesterday Has filled no sacred miser-hoard
To keep new need away.

Thy grace, O Lord, it is thyself;
Thy presence is thy light; I cannot lay it on my shelf,
Or take it from thy sight.

For daily bread we daily pray-
The want still breeds the cry; And so we meet, day after day,
Thou, Father in heaven, and I.

Is my house dreary, wall and floor,
Will not the darkness flit, I go outside my shadowy door
And in thy rainbow sit.


SLEEP .

Oh! is it Death that comes To have a foretaste of the whole?
To-night the planets and the stars
Will glimmer through my window-bars But will not shine upon my soul!

For I shall lie as dead Though yet I am above the ground;
All passionless, with scarce a breath,
With hands of rest and eyes of death, I shall be carried swiftly round.

Or if my life should break The idle night with doubtful gleams,
Through mossy arches will I go,
Through arches ruinous and low, And chase the true and false in dreams.

Why should I fall asleep? When I am still upon my bed
The moon will shine, the winds will rise
And all around and through the skies The light clouds travel o'er my head!

O busy, busy things, Ye mock me with your ceaseless life!
For all the hidden springs will flow
And all the blades of grass will grow When I have neither peace nor strife.

And all the long night through The restless streams will hurry by;
And round the lands, with endless roar,
The white waves fall upon the shore, And bit by bit devour the dry.

Even thus, but silently, Eternity, thy tide shall flow,
And side by side with every star
Thy long-drawn swell shall bear me far, An idle boat with none to row.

My senses fail with sleep; My heart beats thick; the night is noon;
And faintly through its misty folds
I hear a drowsy clock that holds Its converse with the waning moon.

Oh, solemn mystery That I should be so closely bound
With neither terror nor constraint,
Without a murmur of complaint, And lose myself upon such ground!


SHARING .

On the far horizon there Heaps of cloudy darkness rest; Though the wind is in the air There is stupor east and west.

For the sky no change is making, Scarce we know it from the plain; Droop its eyelids never waking, Blinded by the misty rain;

Save on high one little spot, Round the baffled moon a space Where the tumult ceaseth not: Wildly goes the midnight race!

And a joy doth rise in me Upward gazing on the sight, When I think that others see In yon clouds a like delight;

How perchance an aged man Struggling with the wind and rain, In the moonlight cold and wan Feels his heart grow young again;

As the cloudy rack goes by, How the life-blood mantles up Till the fountain deep and dry Yields once more a sparkling cup.

Or upon the gazing child Cometh down a thought of glory Which will keep him undefiled Till his head is old and hoary.

For it may be he hath woke And hath raised his fair young form; Strangely on his eyes have broke All the splendours of the storm;

And his young soul forth doth leap With the storm-clouds in the moon; And his heart the light will keep Though the vision passeth soon.

Thus a joy hath often laughed On my soul from other skies, Bearing on its wings a draught From the wells of Paradise,

For that not to me alone Comes a splendour out of fear; Where the light of heaven hath shone There is glory far and near.


IN BONDS .

Of the poor bird that cannot fly Kindly you think and mournfully; For prisoners and for exiles all You let the tears of pity fall; And very true the grief should be That mourns the bondage of the free.

The soul- she has a fatherland; Binds her not many a tyrant's hand? And the winged spirit has a home, But can she always homeward come? Poor souls, with all their wounds and foes, Will you not also pity those?


HUNGER .

Father, I cry to thee for bread
With hungred longing, eager prayer; Thou hear'st, and givest me instead
More hunger and a half-despair.

0 Lord, how long? My days decline,
My youth is lapped in memories old; I need not bread alone, but wine-
See, cup and hand to thee I hold!

And yet thou givest: thanks, O Lord,
That still my heart with hunger faints! The day will come when at thy board
I sit, forgetting all my plaints.

If rain must come and winds must blow,
And I pore long o'er dim-seen chart, Yet, Lord, let not the hunger go,
And keep the faintness at my heart.


NEW YEAR'S EVE: A WAKING DREAM .

I have not any fearful tale to tell Of fabled giant or of dragon-claw, Or bloody deed to pilfer and to sell To those who feed, with such, a gaping maw; But what in yonder hamlet there befell, Or rather what in it my fancy saw, I will declare, albeit it may seem Too simple and too common for a dream.

Two brothers were they, and they sat alone Without a word, beside the winter's glow; For it was many years since they had known The love that bindeth brothers, till the snow Of age had frozen it, and it had grown An icy-withered stream that would not flow; And so they sat with warmth about their feet And ice about their hearts that would not beat.

And yet it was a night for quiet hope:- A night the very last of all the year To many a youthful heart did seem to ope An eye within the future, round and clear; And age itself, that travels down the slope, Sat glad and waiting as the hour drew near, The dreamy hour that hath the heaviest chime, Jerking our souls into the coming time.

But they!-alas for age when it is old! The silly calendar they did not heed; Alas for age when in its bosom cold There is not warmth to nurse a bladed weed! They thought not of the morrow, but did hold A quiet sitting as their hearts did feed Inwardly on themselves, as still and mute As if they were a-cold from head to foot.

O solemn kindly night, she looketh still With all her moon upon us now and then! And though she dwelleth most in craggy hill, She hath an eye unto the hearts of men! So past a corner of the window-sill She thrust a long bright finger just as ten Had struck, and on the dial-plate it came, Healing each hour's raw edge with tender flame.

There is a something in the winds of heaven That stirreth purposely and maketh men; And unto every little wind is given A thing to do ere it is still again; So when the little clock had struck eleven,