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

Where oft, in struggle and in contest keen, His eyes will opened be, and all the dance Of life break on him, and a wide expanse Roll upward through the void, sunny and green.


TO JUNE .

Ah, truant, thou art here again, I see! For in a season of such wretched weather I thought that thou hadst left us altogether, Although I could not choose but fancy thee Skulking about the hill-tops, whence the glee Of thy blue laughter peeped at times, or rather Thy bashful awkwardness, as doubtful whether Thou shouldst be seen in such a company Of ugly runaways, unshapely heaps Of ruffian vapour, broken from restraint Of their slim prison in the ocean deeps. But yet I may not chide: fall to thy books- Fall to immediately without complaint- There they are lying, hills and vales and brooks.


SUMMER .

Summer, sweet Summer, many-fingered Summer! We hold thee very dear, as well we may: It is the kernel of the year to-day- All hail to thee! thou art a welcome comer! If every insect were a fairy drummer, And I a fifer that could deftly play, We'd give the old Earth such a roundelay That she would cast all thought of labour from her.- Ah! what is this upon my window-pane? Some sulky, drooping cloud comes pouting up, Stamping its glittering feet along the plain!- Well, I will let that idle fancy drop! Oh, how the spouts are bubbling with the rain! And all the earth shines like a silver cup!


ON A MIDGE .

Whence do ye come, ye creatures? Each of you Is perfect as an angel! wings and eyes Stupendous in their beauty-gorgeous dyes In feathery fields of purple and of blue! Would God I saw a moment as ye do! I would become a molecule in size, Rest with you, hum with you, or slanting rise Along your one dear sunbeam, could I view The pearly secret which each tiny fly- Each tiny fly that hums and bobs and stirs Hides in its little breast eternally From you, ye prickly, grim philosophers With all your theories that sound so high: Hark to the buz a moment, my good sirs!


STEADFAST .

Here stands a giant stone from whose far top Comes down the sounding water: let me gaze Till every sense of man and human ways Is wrecked and quenched for ever, and I drop Into the whirl of time, and without stop Pass downward thus! Again my eyes I raise To thee, dark rock; and through the mist and haze My strength returns when I behold thy prop Gleam stern and steady through the wavering wrack. Surely thy strength is human, and like me Thou bearest loads of thunder on thy back! And, lo, a smile upon thy visage black- A breezy tuft of grass which I can see Waving serenely from a sunlit crack!


PROVISION .

Above my head the great pine-branches tower; Backwards and forwards each to the other bends, Beckoning the tempest-cloud which hither wends Like a slow-laboured thought, heavy with power: Hark to the patter of the coming shower! Let me be silent while the Almighty sends His thunder-word along-but when it ends I will arise and fashion from the hour Words of stupendous import, fit to guard High thoughts and purposes, which I may wave, When the temptation cometh close and hard, Like fiery brands betwixt me and the grave Of meaner things-to which I am a slave, If evermore I keep not watch and ward.


FIRST SIGHT OF THE SEA .

I do remember how, when very young, I saw the great sea first, and heard its swell As I drew nearer, caught within the spell Of its vast size and its mysterious tongue. How the floor trembled, and the dark boat swung With a man in it, and a great wave fell Within a stone's cast! Words may never tell The passion of the moment, when I flung All childish records by, and felt arise A thing that died no more! An awful power I claimed with trembling hands and eager eyes, Mine, mine for ever, an immortal dower.- The noise of waters soundeth to this hour When I look seaward through the quiet skies.


ON THE SOURCE OF THE ARVE .

Hears't thou the dash of water, loud and hoarse, With its perpetual tidings upward climb, Struggling against the wind? Oh, how sublime! For not in vain from its portentous source Thy heart, wild stream, hath yearned for its full force, But from thine ice-toothed caverns, dark as time, At last thou issuest, dancing to the rime Of thy outvolleying freedom! Lo, thy course Lies straight before thee as the arrow flies! Right to the ocean-plains away, away! Thy parent waits thee, and her sunset dyes Are ruffled for thy coming, and the gray Of all her glittering borders flashes high Against the glittering rocks!-oh, haste, and fly!


CONFIDENCE .

Lie down upon the ground, thou hopeless one! Press thy face in the grass, and do not speak. Dost feel the green globe whirl? Seven times a week Climbeth she out of darkness to the sun, Which is her God; seven times she doth not shun Awful eclipse, laying her patient cheek Upon a pillow ghost-beset with shriek Of voices utterless, which rave and run Through all the star-penumbra, craving light And tidings of the dawn from East and West. Calmly she sleepeth, and her sleep is blest With heavenly visions, and the joy of Night Treading aloft with moons; nor hath she fright Though cloudy tempests beat upon her breast.


FATE .

Oft, as I rest in quiet peace, am I Thrust out at sudden doors, and madly driven Through desert solitudes, and thunder-riven Black passages which have not any sky: The scourge is on me now, with all the cry Of ancient life that hath with murder striven. How many an anguish hath gone up to heaven, How many a hand in prayer been lifted high When the black fate came onward with the rush Of whirlwind, avalanche, or fiery spume! Even at my feet is cleft a shivering tomb Beneath the waves; or else, with solemn hush The graveyard opens, and I feel a crush As if we were all huddled in one doom!


UNREST .

Comes there, O Earth, no breathing time for thee, No pause upon thy many-chequered lands? Now resting on my bed with listless hands I mourn thee resting not. Continually Hear I the plashing borders of the sea Answer each other from the rocks and sands! Troop all the rivers seawards; nothing stands, But with strange noises hasteth terribly! Loam-eared hyenas go a moaning by; Howls to each other all the bloody crew Of Afric's tigers! but, O men, from you Comes this perpetual sound more loud and high Than aught that vexes air! I hear the cry Of infant generations rising too!


ONE WITH NATURE .

I have a fellowship with every shade Of changing nature: with the tempest hour My soul goes forth to claim her early dower Of living princedom; and her wings have staid Amidst the wildest uproar undismayed! Yet she hath often owned a better power, And blessed the gentle coming of the shower, The speechless majesty of love arrayed In lowly virtue, under which disguise Full many a princely thing hath passed her by; And she from homely intercourse of eyes Hath gathered visions wider than the sky, And seen the withered heart of man arise Peaceful as God, and full of majesty.


MY TWO GENIUSES .

I.

One is a slow and melancholy maid; I know riot if she cometh from the skies Or from the sleepy gulfs, but she will rise Often before me in the twilight shade, Holding a bunch of poppies and a blade Of springing wheat: prostrate my body lies Before her on the turf, the while she ties A fillet of the weed about my head; And in the gaps of sleep I seem to hear A gentle rustle like the stir of corn, And words like odours thronging to my ear: "Lie still, beloved-still until the morn; Lie still with me upon this rolling sphere- Still till the judgment; thou art faint and worn."

II.

The other meets me in the public throng; Her hair streams backward from her loose attire; She hath a trumpet and an eye of fire; She points me downward, steadily and long:- "There is thy grave-arise, my son, be strong! Hands are upon thy crown-awake, aspire To immortality; heed not the lyre Of the Enchantress, nor her poppy-song, But in the stillness of the summer calm Tremble for what is Godlike in thy being. Listen a while, and thou shall hear the psalm Of victory sung by creatures past thy seeing; And from far battle-fields there comes the neighing Of dreadful onset, though the air is balm."

III.

Maid with the poppies, must I let thee go? Alas, I may not; thou art likewise dear! I am but human, and thou hast a tear When she hath nought but splendour, and the glow Of a wild energy that mocks the flow Of the poor sympathies which keep us here: Lay past thy poppies, and come twice as near, And I will teach thee, and thou too shalt grow; And thou shalt walk with me in open day Through the rough thoroughfares with quiet grace; And the wild-visaged maid shall lead the way, Timing her footsteps to a gentler pace As her great orbs turn ever on thy face, Drinking in draughts of loving help alway.


SUDDEN CALM .

There is a bellowing in me, as of might Unfleshed and visionless, mangling the air With horrible convulse, as if it bare The cruel weight of worlds, but could not fight With the thick-dropping clods, and could but bite A vapour-cloud! Oh, I will climb the stair Of the great universe, and lay me there Even at the threshold of his gate, despite The tempest, and the weakness, and the rush Of this quick crowding on me!-Oh, I dream! Now I am sailing swiftly, as we seem To do in sleep! and I can hear the gush Of a melodious wave that carries me On, on for ever to eternity!


THOU ALSO .

Cry out upon the crime, and then let slip The dogs of hate, whose hanging muzzles track The bloody secret; let the welkin crack Reverberating, while ye dance and skip About the horrid blaze! or else ye strip, More secretly, for the avenging rack, Him who hath done the deed, till, oozing black Ye watch the anguish from his nostrils drip, And all the knotted limbs lie quivering! Or, if your hearts disdain such banqueting, With wide and tearless eyes go staring through The murder cells! but think-that, if your knees Bow not to holiness, then even in you Lie deeper gulfs and blacker crimes than these.


THE AURORA BOREALIS .

Now have I grown a sharpness and an edge Unto my future nights, and I will cut Sheer through the ebon gates that yet will shut On every set of day; or as a sledge Drawn over snowy plains; where not a hedge Breaks this Aurora's dancing, nothing but The one cold Esquimaux' unlikely hut That swims in the broad moonlight! Lo, a wedge Of the clean meteor hath been brightly driven Right home into the fastness of the north! Anon it quickeneth up into the heaven! And I with it have clomb and spreaded forth Upon the crisp and