The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I by George MacDonald

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First rose the scarlet pimpernel
With burning purple heart;
I saw within it, and could spell
The lesson of its art.

Then came the primrose, child-like flower,
And looked me in the face;
It bore a message full of power,
And confidence, and grace.

And breezes rose on pastures trim
And bathed me all about;
Wool-muffled sheep-bells babbled dim,
Or only half spoke out.

Sudden it closed, some door of heaven,
But what came out remained:
The poorest man my loss had given
For that which I had gained!

Thou gav'st me, Lord, a brimming cup
Where I bemoaned a sip;
How easily thou didst make up
For that my fault let slip!

What said the flowers? what message new
Embalmed my soul with rest?
I scarce can tell--only they grew
Right out of God's own breast.

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 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 ripples down the wind,
Sweet sighs float everywhere;
But when I look I nothing find,
For every star is there.
O lady lovely, lady strong,
Ungiven thy best gift lies!
Thou bear'st me in thine arms along,
Dost not reveal thine eyes!

Pale doubt lifts up a snaky crest,
In darts a pang of loss:
My outstretched hand, for hills of rest,
Finds only mounds of moss!
Faint and far off the stars appear;
The wind begins to weep;
'Tis night indeed, chilly and drear,
And all but me asleep!

ROADSIDE POEMS.

_BETTER THINGS_.

Better to smell the violet
Than sip the glowing wine;
Better to hearken to a brook
Than watch a diamond shine.

Better to have a loving friend
Than ten admiring foes;
Better a daisy's earthy root
Than a gorgeous, dying rose.

Better to love in loneliness
Than bask in love all day;
Better the fountain in the heart
Than the fountain by the way.

Better be fed by mother's hand
Than eat alone at will;
Better to trust in God, than say,
My goods my storehouse fill.

Better to be a little wise
Than in knowledge to abound;
Better to teach a child than toil
To fill perfection's round.

Better to sit at some man's feet
Than thrill a listening state;
Better suspect that thou art proud
Than be sure that thou art great.

Better to walk the realm unseen
Than watch the hour's event;
Better the _Well done, faithful slave_!
Than the air with shoutings rent.

Better to have a quiet grief
Than many turbulent joys;
Better to miss thy manhood's aim
Than sacrifice the boy's.

Better a death when work is done
Than earth's most favoured birth;
Better a child in God's great house
Than the king of all the earth.

_AN OLD SERMON WITH A NEW TEXT_.

My wife contrived a fleecy thing
Her husband to infold,
For 'tis the pride of woman still
To cover from the cold:
My daughter made it a new text
For a sermon very old.

The child came trotting to her side,
Ready with bootless aid:
"Lily make veckit for papa,"
The tiny woman said:
Her mother gave the means and ways,
And a knot upon her thread.

"Mamma, mamma!--it won't come through!"
In meek dismay she cried.
Her mother cut away the knot,
And she was satisfied,
Pulling the long thread through and through,
In fabricating pride.

Her mother told me this: I caught
A glimpse of something more:
Great meanings often hide behind
The little word before!
And I brooded over my new text
Till the seed a sermon bore.

Nannie, to you I preach it now--
A little sermon, low:
Is it not thus a thousand times,
As through the world we go?
Do we not tug, and fret, and cry--
Instead of _Yes, Lord--No_?

While all the rough things that we meet
Which will not move a jot,
The hindrances to heart and feet,
_The Crook in every Lot_,
Mean plainly but that children's threads
Have at the end a knot.

This world of life God weaves for us,
Nor spares he pains or cost,
But we must turn the web to clothes
And shield our hearts from frost:
Shall we, because the thread holds fast,
Count labour vain and lost?

If he should cut away the knot,
And yield each fancy wild,
The hidden life within our hearts--
His life, the undefiled--
Would fare as ill as I should fare
From the needle of my child.

As tack and sheet unto the sail,
As to my verse the rime,

As mountains to the low green earth--
So hard for feet to climb,
As call of striking clock amid
The quiet flow of time,

As sculptor's mallet to the birth
Of the slow-dawning face,
As knot upon my Lily's thread
When she would work apace,
God's _Nay_ is such, and worketh so
For his children's coming grace.

Who, knowing God's intent with him,
His birthright would refuse?
What makes us what we have to be
Is the only thing to choose:
We understand nor end nor means,
And yet his ways accuse!

This is my sermon. It is preached
Against all fretful strife.
Chafe not with anything that is,
Nor cut it with thy knife.
Ah! be not angry with the knot
That holdeth fast thy life.

_LITTLE ELFIE_.

I have a puppet-jointed child,
She's but three half-years old;
Through lawless hair her eyes gleam wild
With looks both shy and bold.

Like little imps, her tiny hands
Dart out and push and take;
Chide her--a trembling thing she stands,
And like two leaves they shake.

But to her mind a minute gone
Is like a year ago;
And when you lift your eyes anon,
Anon you must say _No_!

Sometimes, though not oppressed with care,
She has her sleepless fits;
Then, blanket-swathed, in that round chair
The elfish mortal sits;--

Where, if by chance in mood more grave,
A hermit she appears
Propped in the opening of his cave,
Mummied almost with years;

Or like an idol set upright
With folded legs for stem,
Ready to hear prayers all the night
And never answer them.

But where's the idol-hermit thrust?
Her knees like flail-joints go!
Alternate kiss, her mother must,
Now that, now this big toe!

I turn away from her, and write
For minutes three or four:
A tiny spectre, tall and white,
She's standing by the door!

Then something comes into my head
That makes me stop and think:
She's on the table, the quadruped,
And dabbling in my ink!

O Elfie, make no haste to lose
Thy ignorance of offence!
Thou hast the best gift I could choose,
A heavenly confidence.

'Tis time, long-white-gowned Mrs. Ham,
To put you in the ark!
Sleep, Elfie, God-infolded lamb,
Sleep shining through the dark.

_RECIPROCITY_.

Her mother, Elfie older grown,
One evening, for adieu,
Said, "You'll not mind being left alone,
For God takes care of you!"

In child-way her heart's eye did see
The correlation's node:
"Yes," she said, "God takes care o' me,
An' I take care o' God."

The child and woman were the same,
She changed not, only grew;
'Twixt God and her no shadow came:
The true is always true!

As daughter, sister, promised wife,
Her heart with love did brim:
Now, sure, it brims as full of life,
Hid fourteen years in him!

1892.

_THE SHADOWS_.

My little boy, with smooth, fair cheeks,
And dreamy, large, brown eyes,
Not often, little wisehead, speaks,
But hearing, weighs and tries.

"God is not only in the sky,"
His sister said one day--
Not older much, but she would cry
Like Wisdom in the way--

"He's in this room." His dreamy, clear,
Large eyes look round for God:
In vain they search, in vain they peer;
His wits are all abroad!

"He is not here, mamma? No, no;
I do not see him at all!
He's not the shadows, is he?" So
His doubtful accents fall--

Fall on my heart, no babble mere!
They rouse both love and shame:
But for earth's loneliness and fear,
I might be saying the same!

Nay, sometimes, ere the morning break
And home the shadows flee,
In my dim room even yet I take
Those shadows, Lord, for thee!

_THE CHILD-MOTHER_.

Heavily slumbered noonday bright
Upon the lone field, glory-dight,
A burnished grassy sea:
The child, in gorgeous golden hours,
Through heaven-descended starry flowers,
Went walking on the lea.

Velvety bees make busy hum;
Green flies and striped wasps go and come;
The butterflies gleam white;
Blue-burning, vaporous, to and fro
The dragon-flies like arrows go,
Or hang in moveless flight:--

Not one she followed; like a rill
She wandered on with quiet will;
Received, but did not miss;
Her step was neither quick nor long;
Nought but a snatch of murmured song
Ever revealed her bliss.

An almost solemn woman-child,
Not fashioned frolicsome and wild,
She had more love than glee;
And now, though nine and nothing more,
Another little child she bore,
Almost as big as she.

No silken cloud from solar harms
Had she to spread; with shifting arms
She dodged him from the sun;
Mother and sister both in heart,
She did a gracious woman's part,
Life's task even now begun!

They came upon a stagnant ditch,
The slippery sloping banks of which
More varied blossoms line;
Some ragged-robins baby spies,
Stretches his hands, and crows and cries,
Plain saying, "They are mine!"

What baby wants, that baby has--
A law unalterable as
The poor shall serve the rich:
They are beyond her reach--almost!
She kneels, she strains, and, too engrossed,
Topples into the ditch.

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