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

the west gleams its last?
With sea-veiled limbs, a sleeping group
Of Nereids dreaming past.

Row on, fair swan;-who knows but I,
Ere night hath sought her cave,
May see in splendour pale float by
The Venus of the wave!


II.

A rainbow-wave o'erflowed her,
A glory that deepened and grew,
A song of colour and odour
That thrilled her through and through:
'Twas a dream of too much gladness
Ever to see the light;
They are only dreams of sadness
That weary out the night.

Slow darkness began to rifle
The nest of the sunset fair;
Dank vapour began to stifle
The scents that enriched the air;
The flowers paled fast and faster,
They crumbled, leaf and crown,
Till they looked like the stained plaster
Of a cornice fallen down.

And the change crept nigh and nigher,
Inward and closer stole,
Till the flameless, blasting fire
Entered and withered her soul.-
But the fiends had only flouted
Her vision of the night;
Up came the morn and routed
The darksome things with light.

Wide awake I have often been in it-
The dream that all is none;
It will come in the gladdest minute
And wither the very sun.

Two moments of sad commotion,
One more of doubt's palsied rule-
And the great wave-pulsing ocean
Is only a gathered pool;

A flower is a spot of painting,
A lifeless, loveless hue;
Though your heart be sick to fainting
It says not a word to you;
A bird knows nothing of gladness,
Is only a song-machine;
A man is a reasoning madness,
A woman a pictured queen!

Then fiercely we dig the fountain:
Oh! whence do the waters rise?
Then panting we climb the mountain:
Oh! are there indeed blue skies?
We dig till the soul is weary,
Nor find the water-nest out;
We climb to the stone-crest dreary,
And still the sky is a doubt!

Let alone the roots of the fountain;
Drink of the water bright;
Leave the sky at rest on the mountain,
Walk in its torrent of light;
Although thou seest no beauty,
Though widowed thy heart yet cries,
With thy hands go and do thy duty,
And thy work will clear thine eyes.


III.

A great church in an empty square,
A haunt of echoing tones!
Feet pass not oft enough to wear
The grass between the stones.

The jarring hinges of its gates
A stifled thunder boom;
The boding heart slow-listening waits,
As for a coming doom.

The door stands wide. With hideous grin,
Like dumb laugh, evil, frore,
A gulf of death, all dark within,
Hath swallowed half the floor.

Its uncouth sides of earth and clay
O'erhang the void below;
Ah, some one force my feet away,
Or down I needs must go!

See, see the horrid, crumbling slope!
It breathes up damp and fust!
What man would for his lost loves grope
Amid the charnel dust!

Down, down! The coffined mould glooms high!
Methinks, with anguish dull,
I enter by the empty eye
Into a monstrous skull!

Stumbling on what I dare not guess,
Blind-wading through the gloom,
Still down, still on, I sink, I press,
To meet some awful doom.

My searching hands have caught a door
With iron clenched and barred:
Here, the gaunt spider's castle-core,
Grim Death keeps watch and ward!

Its two leaves shake, its bars are bowed,
As if a ghastly wind,
That never bore a leaf or cloud,
Were pressing hard behind.

They shake, they groan, they outward strain:
What thing of dire dismay
Will freeze its form upon my brain,
And fright my soul away?

They groan, they shake, they bend, they crack;
The bars, the doors divide;
A flood of glory at their back
Hath burst the portals wide!

In flows a summer afternoon;
I know the very breeze!
It used to blow the silvery moon
About the summer trees.

The gulf is filled with flashing tides;
Blue sky through boughs looks in;
Mosses and ferns o'er floor and sides
A mazy arras spin.

The empty church, the yawning cleft,
The earthy, dead despair
Are gone, and I alive am left
In sunshine and in air!


IV.

Some dreams, in slumber's twilight, sly
Through the ivory wicket creep;
Then suddenly the inward eye
Sees them outside the sleep.

Once, wandering in the border gray,
I spied one past me swim;
I caught it on its truant way
To nowhere in the dim.

All o'er a steep of grassy ground,
Lay ruined statues old,
Such forms as never more are found
Save deep in ancient mould,

A host of marble Anakim
Shattered in deadly fight!
Oh, what a wealth one broken limb
Had been to waking sight!

But sudden, the weak mind to mock
That could not keep its own,
Without a shiver or a shock,
Behold, the dream was gone!

For each dim form of marble rare
Stood broken rush or reed;
So bends on autumn field, long bare,
Some tall rain-battered weed.

The shapeless night hung empty, drear,
O'er my scarce slumbering head;
There is no good in staying here,
My spirit moaned, and fled.


V.

The simplest joys that daily pass
Grow ecstasies in sleep;
A wind on heights of waving grass
In a dream has made me weep.

No wonder then my heart one night
Was joy-full to the brim:
I was with one whose love and might
Had drawn me close to him!

But from a church into the street
Came pouring, crowding on,
A troubled throng with hurrying feet,
And Lo, my friend was gone!

Alone upon a miry road
I walked a wretched plain;
Onward without a goal I strode
Through mist and drizzling rain.

Low mounds of ruin, ugly pits,
And brick-fields scarred the globe;
Those wastes where desolation sits
Without her ancient robe.

The dreariness, the nothingness
Grew worse almost than fear;
If ever hope was needful bliss,
Hope sure was needful here!

Did potent wish work joyous change
Like wizard's glamour-spell?
Wishes not always fruitless range,
And sometimes it is well!

I know not. Sudden sank the way,
Burst in the ocean-waves;
Behold a bright, blue-billowed bay,
Red rocks and sounding caves!

Dreaming, I wept. Awake, I ask-
Shall earthly dreams, forsooth,
Set the old Heavens too hard a task
To match them with the truth?


VI.

Once more I build a dream, awake,
Which sleeping I would dream;
Once more an unborn fancy take
And try to make it seem!
Some strange delight shall fill my breast,
Enticed from sleep's abyss,
With sense of motion, yet of rest,
Of sleep, yet waking bliss!

It comes!-I lie on something warm
That lifts me from below;
It rounds me like a mighty arm
Though soft as drifted snow.
A dream, indeed!-Oh, happy me
Whom Titan woman bears
Afloat upon a gentle sea
Of wandering midnight airs!

A breeze, just cool enough to lave
With sense each conscious limb,
Glides round and under, like a wave
Of twilight growing dim!
She bears me over sleeping towns,
O'er murmuring ears of corn;
O'er tops of trees, o'er billowy downs,
O'er moorland wastes forlorn.

The harebells in the mountain-pass
Flutter their blue about;
The myriad blades of meadow grass
Float scarce-heard music out.
Over the lake!-ah! nearer float,
Nearer the water's breast;
Let me look deeper-let me doat
Upon that lily-nest.

Old homes we brush-in wood, on road;
Their windows do not shine;
Their dwellers must be all abroad
In lovely dreams like mine!
Hark-drifting syllables that break
Like foam-bells on fleet ships!
The little airs are all awake
With softly kissing lips.

Light laughter