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

length, of lowly shrubs a scattered fringe;
And last, a gloomy forest, almost blind,
For on its roof no sun-ray did impinge, So that its very leaves did share the mind
Of a brown shadowless day. Not, all the year,
Once part its branches to let through a wind, But all day long the unmoving trees appear
To ponder on the past, as men may do
That for the future wait without a fear, And in the past the coming present view.

IX.

I know not if for days many or few
Pathless we thrid the wood; for never sun,
Its sylvan-traceried windows peeping through, Mottled with brighter green the mosses dun,
Or meted with moving shadows Time the shade.
No life was there-not even a spider spun. At length we came into a sky-roofed glade,
An open level, in a circle shut
By solemn trees that stood aside and made Large room and lonely for a little hut
By grassy sweeps wide-margined from the wood.
'Twas built of saplings old, that had been cut When those great trees no larger by them stood;
Thick with an ancient moss, it seemed to have grown
Thus from the old brown earth, a covert rude, Half-house, half-grave; half-lifted up, half-prone.
To its low door my brother led me. "There
Is thy first school," he said; "there be thou shown Thy pictured alphabet. Wake a mind of prayer,
And praying enter." "But wilt thou not come,
Brother?" I said. "No," said he. And I, "Where Then shall I find thee? Thou wilt not leave me dumb,
And a whole world of thoughts unuttered?"
With half-sad smile and dewy eyes, and some Conflicting motions of his kingly head,
He pointed to the open-standing door.
I entered: inward, lo, my shadow led! I turned: his countenance shone like lightning hoar!
Then slow he turned from me, and parted slow,
Like one unwilling, whom I should see no more; With voice nor hand said, Farewell, I must go!
But drew the clinging door hard to the post.
No dry leaves rustled 'neath his going; no Footfalls came back from the departing ghost.
He was no more. I laid me down and wept;
I dared not follow him, restrained the most By fear I should not see him if I leapt
Out after him with cries of pleading love.
Close to the wall, in hopeless loss, I crept; There cool sleep came, God's shadow, from above.

X.

I woke, with calmness cleansed and sanctified-
The peace that filled my heart of old, when I
Woke in my mother's lap; for since I died The past lay bare, even to the dreaming shy
That shadowed my yet gathering unborn brain.
And, marvelling, on the floor I saw, close by My elbow-pillowed head, as if it had lain
Beside me all the time I dreamless lay,
A little pool of sunlight, which did stain The earthen brown with gold; marvelling, I say,
Because, across the sea and through the wood,
No sun had shone upon me all the way. I rose, and through a chink the glade I viewed,
But all was dull as it had always been,
And sunless every tree-top round it stood, With hardly light enough to show it green;
Yet through the broken roof, serenely glad,
By a rough hole entered that heavenly sheen. Then I remembered in old years I had
Seen such a light-where, with dropt eyelids gloomed,
Sitting on such a floor, dark women sad In a low barn-like house where lay entombed
Their sires and children; only there the door
Was open to the sun, which entering plumed With shadowy palms the stones that on the floor
Stood up like lidless chests-again to find
That the soul needs no brain, but keeps her store In hidden chambers of the eternal mind.
Thence backward ran my roused Memory
Down the ever-opening vista-back to blind Anticipations while my soul did lie
Closed in my mother's; forward thence through bright
Spring morns of childhood, gay with hopes that fly Bird-like across their doming blue and white,
To passionate summer noons, to saddened eves
Of autumn rain, so on to wintred night; Thence up once more to the dewy dawn that weaves
Saffron and gold-weaves hope with still content,
And wakes the worship that even wrong bereaves Of half its pain. And round her as she went
Hovered a sense as of an odour dear
Whose flower was far-as of a letter sent Not yet arrived-a footstep coming near,
But, oh, how long delayed the lifting latch!-
As of a waiting sun, ready to peer Yet peering not-as of a breathless watch
Over a sleeping beauty-babbling rime
About her lips, but no winged word to catch! And here I lay, the child of changeful Time
Shut in the weary, changeless Evermore,
A dull, eternal, fadeless, fruitless clime! Was this the dungeon of my sinning sore-
A gentle hell of loneliness, foredoomed
For such as I, whose love was yet the core Of all my being? The brown shadow gloomed
Persistent, faded, warm. No ripple ran
Across the air, no roaming insect boomed. "Alas," I cried, "I am no living man!
Better were darkness and the leave to grope
Than light that builds its own drear prison! Can This be the folding of the wings of Hope?"

XI.

That instant-through the branches overhead
No sound of going went-a shadow fell
Isled in the unrippled pool of sunlight fed From some far fountain hid in heavenly dell.
I looked, and in the low roofs broken place
A single snowdrop stood-a radiant bell Of silvery shine, softly subdued by grace
Of delicate green that made the white appear
Yet whiter. Blind it bowed its head a space, Half-timid-then, as in despite of fear,
Unfolded its three rays. If it had swung
Its pendent bell, and music golden clear- Division just entrancing sounds among-
Had flickered down as tender as flakes of snow,
It had not shed more influence as it rung Than from its look alone did rain and flow.
I knew the flower; perceived its human ways;
Dim saw the secret that had made it grow: My heart supplied the music's golden phrase.
Light from the dark and snowdrops from the earth,
Life's resurrection out of gross decays, The endless round of beauty's yearly birth,
And nations' rise and fall-were in the flower,
And read themselves in silence. Heavenly mirth Awoke in my sad heart. For one whole hour
I praised the God of snowdrops. But at height
The bliss gave way. Next, faith began to cower; And then the snowdrop vanished from my sight.

XII.

Last, I began in unbelief to say:
"No angel this! a snowdrop-nothing more!
A trifle which God's hands drew forth in play From the tangled pond of chaos, dank and frore,
Threw on the bank, and left blindly to breed!
A wilful fancy would have gathered store Of evanescence from the pretty weed,
White, shapely-then divine! Conclusion lame
O'erdriven into the shelter of a creed! Not out of God, but nothingness it came:
Colourless, feeble, flying from life's heat,
It has no honour, hardly shunning shame!" When, see, another shadow at my feet!
Hopeless I lifted now my weary head:
Why mock me with another heavenly cheat?- A primrose fair, from its rough-blanketed bed
Laughed, lo, my unbelief to heavenly scorn!
A sun-child, just awake, no prayer yet said, Half rising from the couch where it was born,
And smiling to the world! I breathed again;
Out of the midnight once more dawned the morn, And fled the phantom Doubt with all his train.

XIII.

I was a child once more, nor pondered life,
Thought not of what or how much. All my soul
With sudden births of lovely things grew rife. In peeps a daisy: on the instant roll
Rich lawny fields, with red tips crowding the green,
Across the hollows, over ridge and knoll, To where the rosy sun goes down serene.
From out of heaven in looks a pimpernel:
I walk in morning scents of thyme and bean; Dewdrops on every stalk and bud and bell
Flash, like a jewel-orchard, many roods;
Glow ruby suns, which emerald suns would quell; Topaz saint-glories, sapphire beatitudes
Blaze in the slanting sunshine all around;
Above, the high-priest-lark, o'er fields and woods- Rich-hearted with his five eggs on the ground-
The sacrifice bore through the veil of light,
Odour and colour offering up in sound.- Filled heart-full thus with forms of lowly might
And shapeful silences of lovely lore,
I sat a child, happy with only sight, And for a time I needed nothing more.

XIV.

Supine to the revelation I did lie,
Passive as prophet to his dreaming deep,
Or harp Aeolian to the breathing sky, And blest as any child whom twilight sleep
Holds half, and half lets go. But the new day
Of higher need up-dawned with sudden leap: "Ah, flowers," I said, "ye are divinely gay,
But your fair music is too far and fine!
Ye are full cups, yet reach not to allay The drought of those for human love who pine
As the hart for water-brooks!" At once a face
Was looking in my face; its eyes through mine Were feeding me with tenderness and grace,
And by their love I knew my mother's eyes.
Gazing in them, there grew in me apace A longing grief, and love did swell and rise
Till weeping I brake out and did bemoan
My blameful share in bygone tears and cries: "O mother, wilt thou plead for me?" I groan;
"I say not, plead with Christ, but plead with those
Who, gathered now in peace about his throne, Were near me when my heart was full of throes,
And longings vain alter a flying bliss,
Which oft the fountain by the threshold froze: They must forgive me, mother! Tell them this:
No more shall swell the love-dividing sigh;
Down at their feet I lay my selfishness." The face grew passionate at this my cry;
The gathering tears up to its eyebrims rose;
It grew a trembling mist, that did not fly But slow dissolved. I wept as one of those
Who wake outside the garden of their dream,