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

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[_She weeps herself asleep_.]

SCENE V.--LORD SEAFORD, _alternately writing at a table and
composing at his pianoforte_.

SONG.

Eyes of beauty, eyes of light,
Sweetly, softly, sadly bright!
Draw not, ever, o'er my eye,
Radiant mists of ecstasy.

Be not proud, O glorious orbs!
Not your mystery absorbs;
But the starry soul that lies
Looking through your night of eyes.

One moment, be less perfect, sweet;
Sin once in something small;
One fault to lift me on my feet
From love's too perfect thrall!

For now I have no soul; a sea
Fills up my caverned brain,
Heaving in silent waves to thee,
The mistress of that main.

O angel! take my hand in thine;
Unfold thy shining silver wings;
Spread them around thy face and mine,
Close curtained in their murmurings.

But I should faint with too much bliss
To be alone in space with thee;
Except, O dread! one angel-kiss
In sweetest death should set me free.

O beauteous devil, tempt me, tempt me on,
Till thou hast won my soul in sighs;
I'll smile with thee upon thy flaming throne,
If thou wilt keep those eyes.

And if the meanings of untold desires
Should charm thy pain of one faint sting,
I will arise amid the scorching fires,
I will arise and sing.

O what is God to me? He sits apart
Amid the clear stars, passionless and cold.
Divine! thou art enough to fill my heart;
O fold me in thy heaven, sweet love, infold.

With too much life, I fall before thee dead.
With holding thee, my sense consumes in storm.
Thou art too keen a flame, too hallowed
For any temple but thy holy form.

SCENE VI.--_Julian's room next morning; no fire_. JULIAN _stands at
the window, looking into a London fog_.

_Julian_.
And there are mountains on the earth, far-off;
Steep precipices laved at morn in wind
From the blue glaciers fresh; and falls that leap,
Springing from rock to pool abandonedly;
And all the spirit of the earth breathed out,
Bearing the soul, as on an altar-flame,
Aloft to God! And there is woman-love--
Far off, ah me!

[_Sitting down wearily_.]

--the heart of earth's delight
Withered from mine! O for a desert sea,
The cold sun flashing on the sailing icebergs!
Where I might cry aloud on God, until
My soul burst forth upon the wings of pain,
And fled to him. A numbness as of death
Infolds me. As in sleep I walk. I live,
But my dull soul can hardly keep awake.
Yet God is here as on the mountain-top,
Or on the desert sea, or lonely isle;
And I should know him here, if Lilia loved me,
As once I thought she did. But can I blame her?
The change has been too much for her to bear.
Can poverty make one of two hearts cold,
And warm the other with the love of God?
But then I have been silent, often moody,
Drowned in much questioning; and she has thought
That I was tired of her, while more than all
I pondered how to wake her living soul.
She cannot think why I should haunt my chamber,
Except a goaded conscience were my grief;
Thinks not of aught to gain, but all to shun.
Deeming, poor child, that I repent me thus
Of that which makes her mine for evermore,
It is no wonder if her love grow less.
Then I am older much than she; and this
Fever, I think, has made me old indeed
Before my fortieth year; although, within,
I seem as young as ever to myself.
O my poor Lilia! thou art not to blame;
I'll love thee more than ever; I will be
So gentle to thy heart where love lies dead!
For carefully men ope the door, and walk
With silent footfall through the room where lies,
Exhausted, sleeping, with its travail sore,
The body that erewhile hath borne a spirit.
Alas, my Lilia! where is dead Love's child?

I must go forth and do my daily work.
I thank thee, God, that it is hard sometimes
To do my daily labour; for, of old,
When men were poor, and could not bring thee much,
A turtle-dove was all that thou didst ask;
And so in poverty, and with a heart
Oppressed with heaviness, I try to do
My day's work well to thee,--my offering:
That he has taught me, who one day sat weary
At Sychar's well. Then home when I return,
I come without upbraiding thoughts to thee.
Ah! well I see man need not seek for penance--
Thou wilt provide the lamb for sacrifice;
Thou only wise enough to teach the soul,
Measuring out the labour and the grief,
Which it must bear for thy sake, not its own.
He neither chose his glory, nor devised
The burden he should bear; left all to God;
And of them both God gave to him enough.
And see the sun looks faintly through the mist;
It cometh as a messenger to me.
My soul is heavy, but I will go forth;
My days seem perishing, but God yet lives
And loves. I cannot feel, but will believe.

[_He rises and is going_. LILIA _enters, looking weary_.]

Look, my dear Lilia, how the sun shines out!

_Lilia_.
Shines out indeed! Yet 'tis not bad for England.
I would I were in Italy, my own!

[_Weeps_.]

_Julian_.
'Tis the same sun that shines in Italy.

_Lilia_.
But never more will shine upon us there!
It is too late; all wishing is in vain;
But would that we had not so ill deserved
As to be banished from fair Italy!

_Julian_.
Ah! my dear Lilia, do not, do not think
That God is angry when we suffer ill.
'Twere terrible indeed, if 'twere in anger.

_Lilia_.
Julian, I cannot feel as you. I wish
I felt as you feel.

_Julian_.
God will hear you, child,
If you will speak to him. But I must go.
Kiss me, my Lilia.

[_She kisses him mechanically. He goes with a sigh_.]

_Lilia_.
It is plain to see
He tries to love me, but is weary of me.

[_She weeps_.]

_Enter_ LILY.

_Lily_.
Mother, have you been naughty? Mother, dear!

[_Pulling her hand from her face_.]

SCENE VII.--_Julian's room. Noon_. LILIA _at work_; LILY _playing in
a closet_.

_Lily_
(_running up to her mother_).
Sing me a little song; please, mother dear.

[LILIA, _looking off her work, and thinking with
fixed eyes for a few moments, sings_.]

SONG.

Once I was a child,
Oime!
Full of frolic wild;
Oime!
All the stars for glancing,
All the earth for dancing;
Oime! Oime!

When I ran about,
Oime!
All the flowers came out,
Oime!
Here and there like stray things,
Just to be my playthings.
Oime! Oime!

Mother's eyes were deep,
Oime!
Never needing sleep.
Oime!
Morning--they're above me!
Eventide--they love me!
Oime! Oime!

Father was so tall!
Oime!
Stronger he than all!
Oime!
On his arm he bore me,
Queen of all before me.
Oime! Oime!

Mother is asleep;
Oime!
For her eyes so deep,
Oime!
Grew so tired and aching,
They could not keep waking.
Oime! Oime!

Father, though so strong,
Oime!
Laid him down along--
Oime!
By my mother sleeping;
And they left me weeping,
Oime! Oime!

Now nor bird, nor bee,
Oime!
Ever sings to me!
Oime!
Since they left me crying,
All things have been dying.
Oime! Oime!

[LILY _looks long in her mother's face, as if wondering
what the song could be about; then turns away to the closet.
After a little she comes running with a box in her hand_.]

_Lily_.
O mother, mother! there's the old box I had
So long ago, and all my cups and saucers,
And the farm-house and cows.--Oh! some are broken.
Father will mend them for me, I am sure.
I'll ask him when he comes to-night--I will:
He can do everything, you know, dear mother.

SCENE VIII.--_A merchants counting-house_. JULIAN _preparing to go
home_.

_Julian_.
I would not give these days of common toil,
This murky atmosphere that creeps and sinks
Into the very soul, and mars its hue--
Not for the evenings when with gliding keel
I cut a pale green track across the west--
Pale-green, and dashed with snowy white, and spotted
With sunset crimson; when the wind breathed low,
So low it hardly swelled my xebec's sails,
That pointed to the south, and wavered not,
Erect upon the waters.--Jesus said
His followers should have a hundred fold
Of earth's most precious things, with suffering.--
In all the labourings of a weary spirit,
I have been bless'd with gleams of glorious things.
The sights and sounds of nature touch my soul,
No more look in from far.--I never see
Such radiant, filmy clouds, gathered about
A gently opening eye into the blue,
But swells my heart, and bends my sinking knee,
Bowing in prayer. The setting sun, before,
Signed only that the hour for prayer was come,
But now it moves my inmost soul to pray.

On this same earth He walked; even thus he looked
Upon its thousand glories; read them all;
In splendour let them pass on through his soul,
And triumph in their new beatitude,
Finding a heaven of truth to take them in;
But walked on steadily through pain to death.

Better to have the poet's heart than brain,
Feeling than song; but better far than both,
To be a song, a music of God's making;
A tablet, say, on which God's finger of flame,
In words harmonious, of triumphant verse,
That mingles joy and sorrow, sets down clear,
That out of darkness he hath called the light.
It may be voice to such is after given,
To tell the mighty tale to other worlds.

Oh! I am blest in sorrows with a hope
That steeps them all in glory; as gray clouds
Are bathed in light of roses; yea, I were
Most blest of men, if I were now returning
To Lilia's heart as presence. O my God,
I can but look to thee. And then the child!--
Why should my love to her break out in tears?
Why should she be only a consolation,
And not an added joy, to fill my soul
With gladness overflowing in many voices
Of song, and prayer--and weeping only when
Words fainted 'neath the weight of utterance?

SCENE IX.--LILIA _preparing to go out_. LILY.

_Lily_.
Don't go to-night again.

_Lilia_.
Why, child, your father
Will soon be home; and then you will not miss me.

_Lily_.
Oh, but I shall though! and he looks so sad
When you're not here!

_Lilia_
(_aside_).
He cannot look much sadder
Than when I am. I am sure 'tis a relief
To find his child alone when he returns.

_Lily_.
Will you go, mother? Then I'll go and cry
Till father comes. He'll take me on his knee,
And tell such lovely tales: you never do--
Nor sing me songs made all for my own self.
He does not kiss me half so many times
As you do, mother; but he loves me more.
Do you love father, too? I love him _so_!

_Lilia_
(_ready_).
There's such a pretty book! Sit on the stool,
And look at the pictures till your father comes.

[_Goes_.]

_Lily_
(_putting the book down, and going to the window_).
I wish he would come home. I wish he would.

_Enter_ JULIAN.

Oh, there he is!

[_Running up to him_.]

Oh, now I am so happy!

[_Laughing_.]

I had not time to watch before you came.

_Julian_
(_taking her in his arms_).
I am very glad to have my little girl;
I walked quite fast to come to her again.

_Lily_.
I do, _do_ love you. Shall I tell you something?
Think I should like to tell you. Tis a dream
That I went into, somewhere in last night.
I was alone--quite;--you were not with me,
So I must tell you. 'Twas a garden, like
That one you took me to, long, long ago,
When the sun was so hot. It was not winter,
But some of the poor leaves were growing tired
With hanging there so long. And some of them
Gave it up quite, and so dropped down and lay
Quiet on the ground. And I was watching them.
I saw one falling--down, down--tumbling down--
Just at the earth--when suddenly it spread
Great wings and flew.--It was a butterfly,
So beautiful with wings, black, red, and white--

[_Laughing heartily_.]

I thought it was a crackly, withered leaf.
Away it flew! I don't know where it went.
And so I thought, I have a story now
To tell dear father when he comes to Lily.

_Julian_.
Thank you, my child; a very pretty dream.
But I am tired--will you go find another--
Another dream somewhere in sleep for me?

_Lily_.
O yes, I will.--Perhaps I cannot find one.

[_He lays her down to sleep; then sits musing_.]

_Julian_.
What shall I do to give it life again?
To make it spread its wings before it fall,
And lie among the dead things of the earth?

_Lily_.
I cannot go to sleep. Please, father, sing
The song about the little thirsty lily.

[JULIAN _sings_.]

SONG.

Little white Lily
Sat by a stone,
Drooping and waiting
Till the sun shone.
Little white Lily
Sunshine has fed;
Little white Lily
Is lifting her head.

Little white Lily
Said, "It is good:
Little white Lily's
Clothing and food!
Little white Lily
Drest like a bride!
Shining with whiteness,
And crowned beside!"

Little white Lily
Droopeth in pain,
Waiting and waiting
For the wet rain.
Little white Lily
Holdeth her cup;
Rain is fast falling,
And filling it up.

Little white Lily
Said, "Good again,
When I am thirsty
To have nice rain!
Now I am stronger,
Now I am cool;
Heat cannot burn me,
My veins are so full!"

Little white Lily
Smells very sweet:
On her head sunshine,
Rain at her feet.
"Thanks to the sunshine!
Thanks to the rain!
Little white Lily
Is happy again!"

[_He is silent for a moment; then goes and looks at her_.]

_Julian_.
She is asleep, the darling! Easily
Is Sleep enticed to brood on childhood's heart.
Gone home unto thy Father for the night!

[_He returns to his seat_.]

I have grown common to her. It is strange--
This commonness--that, as a blight, eats up
All the heart's springing corn and promised fruit.

[_Looking round_.]

This room is very common: everything
Has such a well-known look of nothing in it;
And yet when first I called it hers and mine,
There was a mystery inexhaustible
About each trifle on the chimney-shelf:
The gilding now is nearly all worn off.
Even she, the goddess of the wonder-world,
Seems less mysterious and worshipful:
No wonder I am common in her eyes.
Alas! what must I think? Is this the true?
Was that the false that was so beautiful?
Was it a rosy mist that wrapped it round?
Or was love to the eyes as opium,
Making all things more beauteous than they were?
And can that opium do more than God
To waken beauty in a human brain?
Is this the real, the cold, undraperied truth--
A skeleton admitted as a guest
At life's loud feast, wearing a life-like mask?
No, no; my heart would die if I believed it.
A blighting fog uprises with the days,
False, cold, dull, leaden, gray. It clings about
The present, far dragging like a robe; but ever
Forsakes the past, and lets its hues shine out:
On past and future pours the light of heaven.
The Commonplace is of the present mind.
The Lovely is the True. The Beautiful
Is what God made. Men from whose narrow bosoms
The great child-heart has withered, backward look
To their first-love, and laugh, and call it folly,
A mere delusion to which youth is subject,
As childhood to diseases. They know better!
And proud of their denying, tell the youth,
On whom the wonder of his being shines,
That will be over with him by and by:
"I was so when a boy--look at me now!"
Youth, be not one of them, but love thy love.
So with all worship of the high and good,
And pure and beautiful. These men are wiser!
Their god, Experience, but their own decay;
Their wisdom but the gray hairs gathered on them.
Yea, some will mourn and sing about their loss,
And for the sake of sweet sounds cherish it,
Nor yet believe that it was more than seeming.
But he in whom the child's heart hath not died,
But grown a man's heart, loveth yet the Past;
Believes in all its beauty; knows the hours
Will melt the mist; and that, although this day
Cast but a dull stone on Time's heaped-up cairn,
A morning light will break one morn and draw
The hidden glories of a thousand hues
Out from its diamond-depths and ruby-spots
And sapphire-veins, unseen, unknown, before.
Far in the future lies his refuge. Time
Is God's, and all its miracles are his;
And in the Future he overtakes the Past,
Which was a prophecy of times to come:
_There_ lie great flashing stars, the same that shone
In childhood's laughing heaven; there lies the wonder
In which the sun went down and moon arose;
The joy with which the meadows opened out
Their daisies to the warming sun of spring;
Yea, all the inward glory, ere cold fear
Froze, or doubt shook the mirror of his soul:
To reach it, he must climb the present slope
Of this day's duty--here he would not rest.
But all the time the glory is at hand,
Urging and guiding--only o'er its face
Hangs ever, pledge and screen, the bridal veil:
He knows the beauty radiant underneath;
He knows that God who is the living God,
The God of living things, not of the dying,
Would never give his child, for God-born love,
A cloud-made phantom, fading in the sun.
Faith vanishes in sight; the cloudy veil
Will melt away, destroyed of inward light.

If thy young heart yet lived, my Lilia, thou
And I might, as two children, hand in hand,
Go home unto our Father.--I believe
It only sleeps, and may be wakened yet.

SCENE X.--_Julian's room. Christmas Day; early morn_. JULIAN.

_Julian_.
The light comes feebly, slowly, to the world
On this one day that blesses all the year,
Just as it comes on any other day:
A feeble child he came, yet not the less
Brought godlike childhood to the aged earth,
Where nothing now is common any more.
All things had hitherto proclaimed God:
The wide spread air; the luminous mist that hid
The far horizon of the fading sea;
The low persistent music evermore
Flung down upon the sands, and at the base
Of the great rocks that hold it as a cup;
All things most common; the furze, now golden, now
Opening dark pods in music to the heat
Of the high summer-sun at afternoon;
The lone black tarn upon the round hill-top,
O'er which the gray clouds brood like rising smoke,
Sending its many rills, o'erarched and hid,
Singing like children down the rocky sides;--
Where shall I find the most unnoticed thing,
For that sang God with all its voice of song?
But men heard not, they knew not God in these;
To their strange speech unlistening ears were strange;
For with a stammering tongue and broken words,
With mingled falsehoods and denials loud,
Man witnessed God unto his fellow man:
How then himself the voice of Nature hear?
Or how himself he heeded, when, the leader,
He in the chorus sang a discord vile?
When prophet lies, how shall the people preach?
But when He came in poverty, and low,
A real man to half-unreal men,
A man whose human thoughts were all divine,
The head and upturned face of human kind--
Then God shone forth from all the lowly earth,
And men began to read their maker there.
Now the Divine descends, pervading all.
Earth is no more a banishment from heaven;
But a lone field among the distant hills,
Well ploughed and sown, whence corn is gathered home.
Now, now we feel the holy mystery
That permeates all being: all is God's;
And my poor life is terribly sublime.
Where'er I look, I am alone in God,
As this round world is wrapt in folding space;
Behind, before, begin and end in him:
So all beginnings and all ends are hid;
And he is hid in me, and I in him.

Oh, what a unity, to mean them all!--
The peach-dyed morn; cold stars in colder blue
Gazing across upon the sun-dyed west,
While the dank wind is running o'er the graves;
Green buds, red flowers, brown leaves, and ghostly snow;
The grassy hills, breeze-haunted on the brow;
And sandy deserts hung with stinging stars!
Half-vanished hangs the moon, with daylight sick,
Wan-faced and lost and lonely: daylight fades--
Blooms out the pale eternal flower of space,
The opal night, whose odours are gray dreams--
Core of its petal-cup, the radiant moon!
All, all the unnumbered meanings of the earth,
Changing with every cloud that passes o'er;
All, all, from rocks slow-crumbling in the frost
Of Alpine deserts, isled in stormy air,
To where the pool in warm brown shadow sleeps,
The stream, sun-ransomed, dances in the sun;
All, all, from polar seas of jewelled ice,
To where she dreams out gorgeous flowers--all, all
The unlike children of her single womb!
Oh, my heart labours with infinitude!
All, all the messages that these have borne
To eyes and ears, and watching, listening souls;
And all the kindling cheeks and swelling hearts,
That since the first-born, young, attempting day,
Have gazed and worshipped!--What a unity,
To mean each one, yet fuse each in the all!
O centre of all forms! O concord's home!
O world alive in one condensed world!
O face of Him, in whose heart lay concealed
The fountain-thought of all this kingdom of heaven!
Lord, thou art infinite, and I am thine!

I sought my God; I pressed importunate;
I spoke to him, I cried, and in my heart
It seemed he answered me. I said--"Oh! take
Me nigh to thee, thou mighty life of life!
I faint, I die; I am a child alone
'Mid the wild storm, the brooding desert-night."

"Go thou, poor child, to him who once, like thee,
Trod the highways and deserts of the world."

"Thou sendest me then, wretched, from thy sight!
Thou wilt not have me--I am not worth thy care!"

"I send thee not away; child, think not so;
From the cloud resting on the mountain-peak,
I call to guide thee in the path by which
Thou may'st come soonest home unto my heart.
I, I am leading thee. Think not of him
As he were one and I were one; in him
Thou wilt find me, for he and I are one.
Learn thou to worship at his lowly shrine,
And see that God dwelleth in lowliness."

I came to Him; I gazed upon his face;
And Lo! from out his eyes God looked on me!--
Yea, let them laugh! I _will_ sit at his feet,
As a child sits upon the ground, and looks
Up in his mother's face. One smile from him,
One look from those sad eyes, is more to me
Than to be lord myself of hearts and thoughts.
O perfect made through the reacting pain
In which thy making force recoiled on thee!
Whom no less glory could make visible
Than the utter giving of thyself away;
Brooding no thought of grandeur in the deed,
More than a child embracing from full heart!
Lord of thyself and me through the sore grief
Which thou didst bear to bring us back to God,
Or rather, bear in being unto us
Thy own pure shining self of love and truth!
When I have learned to think thy radiant thoughts,
To love the truth beyond the power to know it,
To bear my light as thou thy heavy cross,
Nor ever feel a martyr for thy sake,
But an unprofitable servant still,--
My highest sacrifice my simplest duty
Imperative and unavoidable,
Less than which _All_, were nothingness and waste;
When I have lost myself in other men,
And found myself in thee--the Father then
Will come with thee, and will abide with me.

* * * * *

SCENE XI.--LILIA _teaching_ LADY GERTRUDE. _Enter_ LORD SEAFORD.
LILIA _rises_. _He places her a chair, and seats himself at the
instrument; plays a low, half-melancholy, half-defiant prelude, and
sings_.

SONG.

Look on the magic mirror;
A glory thou wilt spy;

Be with thine heart a sharer,
But go not thou too nigh;
Else thou wilt rue thine error,
With a tear-filled, sleepless eye.

The youth looked on the mirror,
And he went not too nigh;
And yet he rued his error,
With a tear-filled, sleepless eye;
For he could not be a sharer
In what he there did spy.

He went to the magician
Upon the morrow morn.
"Mighty," was his petition,
"Look not on me in scorn;
But one last gaze elision,
Lest I should die forlorn!"

He saw her in her glory,
Floating upon the main.
Ah me! the same sad story!
The darkness and the rain!
If I live till I am hoary,
I shall never laugh again.

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