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

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They said, to every flower he made
God's thought was root and stem-
Perhaps said what the lilies said
When Jesus looked at them.


IV.

Sometimes, in daylight hours, awake,
Our souls with visions teem
Which to the slumbering brain would take
The form of wondrous dream.

Once, with my thought-sight, I descried
A plain with hills around;
A lordly company on each side
Leaves bare the middle ground.

Great terrace-steps at one end rise
To something like a throne,
And thither all the radiant eyes,
As to a centre, shone.

A snow-white glory, dim-defined,
Those seeking eyes beseech-
Him who was not in fire or wind,
But in the gentle speech.

They see his eyes far-fixed wait:
Adown the widening vale
They, turning, look; their breath they bate,
With dread-filled wonder pale.

In raiment worn and blood-bedewed,
With faltering step and numb,
Toward the shining multitude
A weary man did come.

His face was white, and still-composed,
As of a man nigh dead;
The eyes, through eyelids half unclosed,
A faint, wan splendour shed.

Drops on his hair disordered hung
Like rubies dull of hue;
His hands were pitifully wrung,
And stricken through and through.

Silent they stood with tender awe:
Between their ranks he came;
Their tearful eyes looked down, and saw
What made his feet so lame.

He reached the steps below the throne,
There sank upon his knees;
Clasped his torn hands with stifled groan,
And spake in words like these:-

"Father, I am come back. Thy will
Is sometimes hard to do."
From all that multitude so still
A sound of weeping grew.

Then mournful-glad came down the One;
He kneeled and clasped his child;
Lay on his breast the outworn man,
And wept until he smiled.

The people, who, in bitter woe
And love, had sobbed and cried,
Raised aweful eyes at length-and, Lo,
The two sat side by side!


V.

Dreaming I slept. Three crosses stood
High in the gloomy air;
One bore a thief, and one the Good;
The other waited bare.

A soldier came up to the place,
And took me for the third;
My eyes they sought the Master's face,
My will the Master's word.

He bent his head; I took the sign,
And gave the error way;
Gesture nor look nor word of mine
The secret should betray.

The soldier from the cross's foot
Turned. I stood waiting there:
That grim, expectant tree, for fruit
My dying form must bear.

Up rose the steaming mists of doubt
And chilled both heart and brain;
They shut the world of vision out,
And fear saw only pain.

"Ah me, my hands! the hammer's blow!
The nails that rend and pierce!
The shock may stun, but, slow and slow,
The torture will grow fierce."

"Alas, the awful fight with death!
The hours to hang and die!
The thirsting gasp for common breath!
The weakness that would cry!"

My soul returned: "A faintness soon
Will shroud thee in its fold;
The hours will bring the fearful noon;
'Twill pass-and thou art cold."

"'Tis his to care that thou endure,
To curb or loose the pain;
With bleeding hands hang on thy cure-
It shall not be in vain."

But, ah, the will, which thus could quail,
Might yield-oh, horror drear!
Then, more than love, the fear to fail
Kept down the other fear.

I stood, nor moved. But inward strife
The bonds of slumber broke:
Oh! had I fled, and lost the life
Of which the Master spoke?

VI.

Methinks I hear, as o'er this life's dim dial
The last shades darken, friends say, " He was good ;"
I struggling fail to speak my faint denial-
They whisper, " His humility withstood ."

I, knowing better, part with love unspoken;
And find the unknown world not all unknown:
The bonds that held me from my centre broken,
I seek my home, the Saviour's homely throne.

How he will greet me, walking on, I wonder;
I think I know what I will say to him;
I fear no sapphire floor of cloudless thunder,
I fear no passing vision great and dim.

But he knows all my weary sinful story:
How will he judge me, pure, and strong, and fair?
I come to him in all his conquered glory,
Won from the life that I went dreaming there!

I come; I fall before him, faintly saying:
"Ah, Lord, shall I thy loving pardon win?
Earth tempted me; my walk was but a straying;
I have no honour-but may I come in?"

I hear him say: "Strong prayer did keep me stable;
To me the earth was very lovely too:
Thou shouldst have prayed; I would have made thee able
To love it greatly!-but thou hast got through."


PART II.


I.

A gloomy and a windy day!
No sunny spot is bare;
Dull vapours, in uncomely play,
Go weltering through the air:
If through the windows of my mind
I let them come and go,
My thoughts will also in the wind
Sweep restless to and fro.

I drop my curtains for a dream.-
What comes? A mighty swan,
With plumage like a sunny gleam,
And folded airy van!
She comes, from sea-plains dreaming, sent
By sea-maids to my shore,
With stately head proud-humbly bent,
And slackening swarthy oar.

Lone in a vaulted rock I lie,
A water-hollowed cell,
Where echoes of old storms go by,
Like murmurs in a shell.
The waters half the gloomy way
Beneath its arches come;
Throbbing to outside billowy play,
The green gulfs waver dumb.

Undawning twilights through the cave
In moony glimmers go,
Half from the swan above the wave,
Half from the swan below,

As to my feet she gently drifts
Through dim, wet-shiny things,
And, with neck low-curved backward, lifts
The shoulders of her wings.

Old earth is rich with many a nest
Of softness ever new,
Deep, delicate, and full of rest-
But loveliest there are two:
I may not tell them save to minds
That are as white as they;
But none will hear, of other kinds-
They all are turned away.

On foamy mounds between the wings
Of a white sailing swan,
A flaky bed of shelterings,
There you will find the one.
The other-well, it will not out,
Nor need I tell it you;
I've told you one, and can you doubt,
When there are only two?

Fill full my dream, O splendid bird!
Me o'er the waters bear:
Never was tranquil ocean stirred
By ship so shapely fair!
Nor ever whiteness found a dress
In which on earth to go,
So true, profound, and rich, unless
It was the falling snow!

Her wings, with flutter half-aloft,
Impatient fan her crown;
I cannot choose but nestle soft
Into the depth of down.

With oary-pulsing webs unseen,
Out the white frigate sweeps;
In middle space we hang, between
The air- and ocean-deeps.

Up the wave's mounting, flowing side,
With stroke on stroke we rack;
As down the sinking slope we slide,
She cleaves a talking track-
Like heather-bells on lonely steep,
Like soft rain on the glass,
Like children murmuring in their sleep,
Like winds in reedy grass.

Her white breast heaving like a wave,
She beats the solemn time;
With slow strong sweep, intent and grave,
Hearkens the ripples rime.
All round, from flat gloom upward drawn,
I catch the gleam, vague, wide,
With which the waves, from dark to dawn,
Heave up the polished side.

The night is blue; the stars aglow
Crowd the still, vaulted steep,
Sad o'er the hopeless, restless flow
Of the self-murmurous deep-
A thicker night, with gathered moan!
A dull dethroned sky!
The shadows of its stars alone
Left in to know it by!

What faints across yon lifted loop
Where