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

And ripening pass away.

In an old night so let me die;
A slow wind out of doors;
A waning moon low in the sky;
A vapour on the moors;

A fire just dying in the gloom;
Earth haunted all with dreams;
A sound of waters in the room;
A mirror's moony gleams;

And near me, in the sinking night,
More thoughts than move in me-
Forgiving wrong, and loving right,
And waiting till I see.


III.

Across the stubble glooms the wind;
High sails the lated crow;
The west with pallid green is lined;
Fog tracks the river's flow.

My heart is cold and sad; I moan,
Yet care not for my grief;
The summer fervours all are gone;
The roses are but leaf.

Old age is coming, frosty, hoar;
The snows of time will fall;
My jubilance, dream-like, no more
Returns for any call!

O lapsing heart! thy feeble strain
Sends up the blood so spare,
That my poor withering autumn brain
Sees autumn everywhere!


IV.

Lord of my life! if I am blind,
I reck not-thou canst see;
I well may wait my summer mind,
When I am sure of thee!

I made no brave bright suns arise,
Veiled up no sweet gray eves;
I hung no rose-lamps, lit no eyes,
Sent out no windy leaves!

I said not "I will cast a charm
These gracious forms around;"
My heart with unwilled love grew warm;
I took but what I found!

When cold winds range my winter-night,
Be thou my summer-door;
Keep for me all my young delight,
Till I am old no more.


SONGS OF THE WINTER DAYS .


I.

The sky has turned its heart away,
The earth its sorrow found;
The daisies turn from childhood's play,
And creep into the ground.

The earth is black and cold and hard;
Thin films of dry white ice,
Across the rugged wheel-tracks barred,
The children's feet entice.

Dark flows the stream, as if it mourned
The winter in the land;
With idle icicles adorned,
That mill-wheel soon will stand.

But, friends, to say 'tis cold, and part,
Is to let in the cold;
We'll make a summer of the heart,
And laugh at winter old.


II.

With vague dead gleam the morning white
Comes through the window-panes;
The clouds have fallen all the night,
Without the noise of rains.

As of departing, unseen ghost,
Footprints go from the door;
The man himself must long be lost
Who left those footprints hoar!

Yet follow thou; tread down the snow;
Leave all the road behind;
Heed not the winds that steely blow,
Heed not the sky unkind;

For though the glittering air grow dark,
The snow will shine till morn;
And long ere then one dear home-spark
Will winter laugh to scorn.

III.

Oh wildly wild the roaring blast
Torments the fallen snow!
The wintry storms are up at last,
And care not how they go!

In foam-like wreaths the water hoar,
Rapt whistling in the air,
Gleams through the dismal twilight frore;
A region in despair,

A spectral ocean lies outside,
Torn by a tempest dark;
Its ghostly billows, dim descried,
Leap on my stranded bark.

Death-sheeted figures, long and white,
Rave driving through the spray;
Or, bosomed in the ghastly night,
Shriek doom-cries far away.


IV.

A morning clear, with frosty light
From sunbeams late and low;
They shine upon the snow so white,
And shine back from the snow.

Down tusks of ice one drop will go,
Nor fall: at sunny noon
'Twill hang a diamond-fade, and grow
An opal for the moon.

And when the bright sad sun is low
Behind the mountain-dome,
A twilight wind will come and blow
Around the children's home,

And puff and waft the powdery snow,
As feet unseen did pass;
While, waiting in its bed below,
Green lies the summer grass.


SONGS OF THE WINTER NIGHTS .


I.

Back shining from the pane, the fire
Seems outside in the snow:
So love set free from love's desire
Lights grief of long ago.

The dark is thinned with snow-sheen fine,
The earth bedecked with moon;
Out on the worlds we surely shine
More radiant than in June!

In the white garden lies a heap
As brown as deep-dug mould:
A hundred partridges that keep
Each other from the cold.

My father gives them sheaves of corn,
For shelter both and food:
High hope in me was early born,
My father was so good.


II.

The frost weaves ferns and sultry palms
Across my clouded pane;
Weaves melodies of ancient psalms
All through my passive brain.

Quiet ecstasy fills heart and head:
My father is in the room;
The very curtains of my bed
Are from Love's sheltering loom!

The lovely vision melts away;
I am a child no more;
Work rises from the floor of play;
Duty is at the door.

But if I face with courage stout
The labour and the din,
Thou, Lord, wilt let my mind go out
My heart with thee stay in.


III.

Up to my ear my soul doth run-
Her other door is dark;
There she can see without the sun,
And there she sits to mark.

I hear the dull unheeding wind
Mumble o'er heath and wold;
My fancy leaves my brain behind,
And floats into the cold.

Like a forgotten face that lies
One of the speechless crowd,
The earth lies spent, with frozen eyes,
White-folded in her shroud.

O'er leafless woods and cornless farms,
Dead rivers, fireless thorps,
I brood, the heart still throbbing warm
In Nature's wintered corpse.

IV.

To all the world mine eyes are blind:
Their drop serene is-night,
With stores of snow piled up the wind
An awful airy height.

And yet 'tis but a mote in the eye:
The simple faithful stars
Beyond are shining, careless high,
Nor heed our storms and jars.

And when o'er storm and jar I climb-
Beyond life's atmosphere,
I shall behold the lord of time
And space-of world and year.

Oh vain, far quest!-not thus my heart
Shall ever find its goal!
I turn me home-and there thou art,
My Father, in my soul!


SONGS OF THE SPRING DAYS .


I.

A gentle wind, of western birth
On some far summer sea,
Wakes daisies in the wintry earth,
Wakes hopes in wintry me.

The sun is low; the paths are wet,
And dance with frolic hail;
The trees-their spring-time is not yet-
Swing sighing in the gale.

Young gleams of sunshine peep and play;
Clouds shoulder in between;
I scarce believe one coming day
The earth will all be green.

The north wind blows, and blasts, and raves,
And flaps his snowy wing:
Back! toss thy bergs on arctic waves;
Thou canst not bar our spring.


II.

Up comes the primrose, wondering;
The snowdrop droopeth by;
The holy spirit of the spring
Is working silently.

Soft-breathing breezes woo and wile
The later children out;
O'er woods and farms a sunny smile
Is flickering about.

The earth was cold, hard-hearted, dull;
To death almost she slept:
Over her, heaven grew beautiful,
And forth her beauty crept.

Showers yet must fall, and waters grow
Dark-wan with furrowing blast;
But suns will shine, and soft winds blow,
Till the year flowers at last.


III.

The sky is smiling over me,
Hath smiled away the frost;
White daisies star the sky-like lea,
With buds the wood's embossed.

Troops of wild flowers gaze at the sky
Up through the latticed boughs;
Till comes