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

Its something human, wrapt in other veil.

And when the winter came, when thick the snow
Armed the sad fields from gnawing of the frost,
When the low sun but skirted his far realms,
And sank in early night, he drew his chair
Beside the fire; and by the feeble lamp
Read book on book; and wandered other climes,
And lived in other lives and other needs,
And grew a larger self by other selves.
Ere long, the love of knowledge had become
A hungry passion and a conscious power,
And craved for more than reading could supply.
Then, through the night (all dark, except the moon
Shone frosty o'er the heath, or the white snow
Gave back such motes of light as else had sunk
In the dark earth) he bent his plodding way
Over the moors to where the little town
Lay gathered in the hollow. There the student
Who taught from lingering dawn to early dark,
Had older scholars in the long fore-night;
For youths who in the shop, or in the barn,
Or at the loom, had done their needful work,
Came gathering there through starlight, fog, or snow,
And found the fire ablaze, the candles lit,
And him who knew waiting for who would know.
Here mathematics wiled him to their heights;
And strange consent of lines to form and law
Made Euclid a profound romance of truth.
The master saw with wonder how he seized,
How eagerly devoured the offered food,
And longed to give him further kinds. For Knowledge
Would multiply like Life; and two clear souls
That see a truth, and, turning, see at once
Each the other's face glow in that truth's delight,
Are drawn like lovers. So the master offered
To guide the ploughman through the narrow ways
To heights of Roman speech. The youth, alert,
Caught at the offer; and for years of nights,
The house asleep, he groped his twilight way
With lexicon and rule, through ancient story,
Or fable fine, embalmed in Latin old;
Wherein his knowledge of the English tongue,
Through reading many books, much aided him-
For best is like in all the hearts and tongues.

At length his progress, through the master's pride
In such a pupil, reached the father's ears.
Great gladness woke within him, and he vowed,
If caring, sparing might accomplish it,
He should to college, and there have his fill
Of that same learning.

To the plough no more,
All day to school he went; and ere a year,
He wore the scarlet gown with the closed sleeves.

Awkward at first, but with a dignity
Soon finding fit embodiment in speech
And gesture and address, he made his way,
Unconscious all, to the full-orbed respect
Of students and professors; for whose praise
More than his worth, society, so called,
To its rooms in that great city of the North,
Invited him. He entered. Dazzled at first
By brilliance of the shining show, the lights,
The mirrors, gems, white necks, and radiant eyes,
He stole into a corner, and was quiet
Until the vision too had quieter grown.
Bewildered next by many a sparkling word,
Nor knowing the light-play of polished minds,
Which, like rose-diamonds cut in many facets,
Catch and reflect the wandering rays of truth
As if they were home-born and issuing new,
He held his peace, and silent soon began
To see how little fire it needs to shimmer.
Hence, in the midst of talk, his thoughts would wander
Back to the calm divine of homely toil;
While round him still and ever hung an air
Of breezy fields, and plough, and cart, and scythe-
A kind of clumsy grace, in which gay girls
Saw but the clumsiness-another sort
Saw the grace too, yea, sometimes, when he spoke,
Saw the grace only; and began at last,
For he sought none, to seek him in the crowd,
And find him unexpected, maiden-wise.
But oftener far they sought him than they found,
For seldom was he drawn away from toil;
Seldomer stinted time held due to toil;
For if one night his panes were dark, the next
They gleamed far into morning. And he won
Honours among the first, each session's close.

Nor think that new familiarity
With open forms of ill, not to be shunned
Where many youths are met, endangered much
A mind that had begun to will the pure.
Oft when the broad rich humour of a jest
With breezy force drew in its skirts a troop
Of pestilential vapours following-
Arose within his sudden silent mind
The maiden face that once blushed down on him-
That lady face, insphered beyond his earth,
Yet visible as bright, particular star.
A flush of tenderness then glowed across
His bosom-shone it clean from passing harm:
Should that sweet face be banished by rude words?
It could not stay what maidens might not hear!
He almost wept for shame, that face, such jest,
Should meet in his house. To his love he made
Love's only worthy offering-purity.

And if the homage that he sometimes met,
New to the country lad, conveyed in smiles,
Assents, and silent listenings when he spoke,
Threatened yet more his life's simplicity;
An antidote of nature ever came,
Even Nature's self. For, in the summer months,
His former haunts and boyhood's circumstance
Received him to the bosom of their grace.
And he, too noble to despise the past,
Too proud to be ashamed of manly toil,
Too wise to fancy that a gulf gaped wide
Betwixt the labouring hand and thinking brain,
Or that a workman was no gentleman
Because a workman, clothed himself again
In his old garments, took the hoe, the spade,
The sowing sheet, or covered in the grain,
Smoothing with harrows what the plough had ridged.
With ever fresher joy he hailed the fields,
Returning still with larger powers of sight:
Each time he knew them better than before,
And yet their sweetest aspect was the old.
His labour kept him true to life and fact,
Casting out worldly judgments, false desires,
And vain distinctions. Ever, at his toil,
New thoughts would rise, which, when God's night awoke,
He still would seek, like stars, with instruments-
By science, or by truth's philosophy,
Bridging the gulf betwixt the new and old.
Thus laboured he with hand and brain at once,
Nor missed due readiness when Scotland's sons
Met to reap wisdom, and the fields were white.

His sire was proud of him; and, most of all,
Because his learning did not make him proud:
He was too wise to build upon his lore.
The neighbours asked what he would make his son:
"I'll make a man of him," the old man said;
"And for the rest, just what he likes himself.
He is my only son-I think he'll keep
The old farm on; and I shall go content,
Leaving a man behind me, as I say."

So four years long his life swung to and fro,
Alternating the red gown and blue coat,
The garret study and the wide-floored barn,
The wintry city and the sunny fields:
In every change his mind was well content,
For in himself he was the growing same.

In no one channel flowed his seeking thoughts;
To no profession did he ardent turn:
He knew his father's wish-it was his own.
"Why should a man," he said, "when knowledge grows,
Leave therefore the old patriarchal life,
And seek distinction in the noise of men?"
He turned his asking face on every side;
Went reverent with the anatomist, and saw
The inner form of man laid skilful bare;
Went with the chymist, whose wise-questioning hand
Made Nature do in little, before his eyes,
And momently, what, huge, for centuries,
And in the veil of vastness and lone deeps,
She labours at; bent his inquiring eye
On every source whence knowledge flows for men:
At some he only sipped, at others drank.

At length, when he had gained the master's right-
By custom sacred from of old-to sit
With covered head before the awful rank
Of black-gowned senators; and each of those,
Proud of the scholar, was ready at a word
To speed him onward to what goal he would,
He took his books, his well-worn cap and gown,
And, leaving with a sigh the ancient walls,
Crowned with their crown of stone, unchanging gray
In all the blandishments of youthful spring,
Chose for his world the lone ancestral farm.

With simple gladness met him on the road
His gray-haired father-elder brother now.
Few words were spoken, little welcome said,
But, as they walked, the more was understood.
If with a less delight he brought him home
Than he who met the prodigal returned,
It was with more reliance, with more peace;
For with the leaning pride that old men feel
In young strong arms that draw their might from them,
He led him to the house. His sister there,
Whose kisses were not many, but whose eyes
Were full of watchfulness and hovering love,
Set him beside the fire in the old place,
And heaped the table with best country-fare.

When the swift night grew deep, the father rose,
And led him, wondering why and where they went,
Thorough the limpid dark, by tortuous path
Between the corn-ricks, to a loft above
The stable, where the same old horses slept
Which he had guided that eventful morn.