The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 1

THE DISCIPLE

DEDICATION

 
  To all who fain
  Would keep the grain,
        And cast the husk away—
  That it may feed
  The living seed,
        And serve it with decay—
  I offer this dim story
  Whose clouds crack into glory.
 

THE DISCIPLE

I

 
  The times are changed, and gone the day
      When the high heavenly land,
  Though unbeheld, quite near them lay,
      And men could understand.
 
 
  The dead yet find it, who, when here,
      Did love it more than this;
  They enter in, are filled with cheer,
      And pain expires in bliss.
 
 
  All glorious gleams the blessed land!—
       O God, forgive, I pray:
  The heart thou holdest in thy hand
       Loves more this sunny day!
 
 
  I see the hundred thousand wait
       Around the radiant throne:
  Ah, what a dreary, gilded state!
       What crowds of beings lone!
 
 
  I do not care for singing psalms;
       I tire of good men's talk;
  To me there is no joy in palms,
       Or white-robed, solemn walk.
 
 
  I love to hear the wild winds meet,
       The wild old winds at night;
  To watch the cold stars flash and beat,
       The feathery snow alight.
 
 
  I love all tales of valiant men,
       Of women good and fair:
  If I were rich and strong, ah, then
      I would do something rare!
 
 
  But for thy temple in the sky,
      Its pillars strong and white—
  I cannot love it, though I try,
      And long with all my might.
 
 
  Sometimes a joy lays hold on me,
      And I am speechless then;
  Almost a martyr I could be,
      To join the holy men.
 
 
  Straightway my heart is like a clod,
      My spirit wrapt in doubt:—
  A pillar in the house of God,
      And never more go out!
 
 
  No more the sunny, breezy morn;
      All gone the glowing noon;
  No more the silent heath forlorn,
      The wan-faced waning moon!
 
 
  My God, this heart will never burn,
      Must never taste thy joy!
  Even Jesus' face is calm and stern:
      I am a hapless boy!
 

* * * * *

II

 
  I read good books. My heart despairs.
      In vain I try to dress
  My soul in feelings like to theirs—
      These men of holiness.
 
 
  My thoughts, like doves, abroad I fling
      Into a country fair:
  Wind-baffled, back, with tired wing,
      They to my ark repair.
 
 
  Or comes a sympathetic thrill
      With long-departed saint,
  A feeble dawn, without my will,
      Of feelings old and quaint,
 
 
  As of a church's holy night,
      With low-browed chapels round,
  Where common sunshine dares not light
      On the too sacred ground,—
 
 
  One glance at sunny fields of grain,
      One shout of child at play—
  A merry melody drives amain
      The one-toned chant away!
 
 
  My spirit will not enter here
      To haunt the holy gloom;
  I gaze into a mirror mere,
      A mirror, not a room.
 
 
  And as a bird against the pane
      Will strike, deceived sore,
  I think to enter, but remain
      Outside the closed door.
 
 
  Oh, it will call for many a sigh
      If it be what it claims—
  This book, so unlike earth and sky,
      Unlike man's hopes and aims!—
 
 
  To me a desert parched and bare—
      In which a spirit broods
  Whose wisdom I would gladly share
      At cost of many goods!
 

* * * * *

III

 
  O hear me, God! O give me joy
      Such as thy chosen feel;
  Have pity on a wretched boy;
      My heart is hard as steel.
 
 
  I have no care for what is good;
      Thyself I do not love;
  I relish not this Bible-food;
      My heaven is not above.
 
 
  Thou wilt not hear: I come no more;
      Thou heedest not my woe.
  With sighs and tears my heart is sore.
      Thou comest not: I go.
 

* * * * *

IV

 
  Once more I kneel. The earth is dark,
      And darker yet the air;
  If light there be, 'tis but a spark
      Amid a world's despair—
 
 
  One hopeless hope there yet may be
      A God somewhere to hear;
  The God to whom I bend my knee—
      A God with open ear.
 
 
  I know that men laugh still to scorn
      The grief that is my lot;
  Such wounds, they say, are hardly borne,
      But easily forgot.
 
 
  What matter that my sorrows rest
      On ills which men despise!
  More hopeless heaves my aching breast
      Than when a prophet sighs.
 
 
  AEons of griefs have come and gone—
      My grief is yet my mark.
  The sun sets every night, yet none
      Sees therefore in the dark.
 
 
  There's love enough upon the earth,
      And beauty too, they say:
  There may be plenty, may be dearth,
      I care not any way.
 
 
  The world hath melted from my sight;
      No grace in life is left;
  I cry to thee with all my might,
      Because I am bereft.
 
 
  In vain I cry. The earth is dark,
      And darker yet the air;
  Of light there trembles now no spark
      In my lost soul's despair.
 

* * * * *

V

 
  I sit and gaze from window high
      Down on the noisy street:
  No part in this great coil have I,
      No fate to go and meet.
 
 
  My books unopened long have lain;
      In class I am all astray:
  The questions growing in my brain,
      Demand and have their way.
 
 
  Knowledge is power, the people cry;
      Grave men the lure repeat:
  After some rarer thing I sigh,
      That makes the pulses beat.
 
 
  Old truths, new facts, they preach aloud—
      Their tones like wisdom fall:
  One sunbeam glancing on a cloud
      Hints things beyond them all.
 

* * * * *

VI

 
  But something is not right within;
      High hopes are far gone by.
  Was it a bootless aim—to win
      Sight of a loftier sky?
 
 
  They preach men should not faint, but pray,
      And seek until they find;
  But God is very far away,
      Nor is his countenance kind.
 
 
  Yet every night my father prayed,
      Withdrawing from the throng!
  Some answer must have come that made
      His heart so high and strong!
 
 
  Once more I'll seek the God of men,
      Redeeming childhood's vow.—
  —I failed with bitter weeping then,
      And fail cold-hearted now!
 

VII

 
  Why search for God? A man I tread
      This old life-bearing earth;
  High thoughts awake and lift my head—
      In me they have their birth.
 
 
  The preacher says a Christian must
      Do all the good he can:—
  I must be noble, true, and just,
      Because I am a man!
 
 
  They say a man must watch, and keep
      Lamp burning, garments white,
  Else he shall sit without and weep
      When Christ comes home at night:—
 
 
  A man must hold his honour free,
      His conscience must not stain,
  Or soil, I say, the dignity
      Of heart and blood and brain!
 
 
  Yes, I say well—said words are cheap!
      For action man was born!
  What praise will my one talent reap?
      What grapes are on my thorn?
 
 
  Have high words kept me pure enough?
      In evil have I no part?
  Hath not my bosom "perilous stuff
      That weighs upon the heart"?
 
 
  I am not that which I do praise;
      I do not that I say;
  I sit a talker in the ways,
      A dreamer in the day!
 

VIII

 
  The preacher's words are true, I know—
      That man may lose his life;
  That every man must downward go
      Without the upward strife.
 
 
  'Twere well my soul should cease to roam,
      Should seek and have and hold!
  It may be there is yet a home
      In that religion old.
 
 
  Again I kneel, again I pray:
      Wilt thou be God to me?
  Wilt thou give ear to what I say,
      And lift me up to thee?
 
 
  Lord, is it true? Oh, vision high!
      The clouds of heaven dispart;
  An opening depth of loving sky
      Looks down into my heart!
 
 
  There is a home wherein to dwell—
      The very heart of light!
  Thyself my sun immutable,
      My moon and stars all night!
 
 
  I thank thee, Lord. It must be so,
      Its beauty is so good.
  Up in my heart thou mad'st it go,
      And I have understood.
 
 
  The clouds return. The common day
      Falls on me like a No;
  But I have seen what might be—may,
      And with a hope I go.
 

IX

 
  I am a stranger in the land;
      It gives no welcome dear;
  Its lilies bloom not for my hand,
      Its roses for my cheer.
 
 
  The sunshine used to make me glad,
      But now it knows me not;
  This weight of brightness makes me sad—
      It isolates a blot.
 
 
  I am forgotten by the hills,
      And by the river's play;
  No look of recognition thrills
      The features of the day.
 
 
  Then only am I moved to song,
      When down the darkening street,
  While vanishes the scattered throng,
      The driving rain I meet.
 
 
  The rain pours down. My thoughts awake,
      Like flowers that languished long;
  From bare cold hills the night-winds break,
      From me the unwonted song.
 

X

 
  I read the Bible with my eyes,
      But hardly with my brain;
  Should this the meaning recognize,
      My heart yet reads in vain.
 
 
  These words of promise and of woe
      Seem but a tinkling sound;
  As through an ancient tomb I go,
      With dust-filled urns around.
 
 
  Or, as a sadly searching child,
      Afar from love and home,
  Sits in an ancient chamber, piled
      With scroll and musty tome,
 
 
  So I, in these epistles old
      From men of heavenly care,
  Find all the thoughts of other mould
      Than I can love or share.
 
 
  No sympathy with mine they show,
      Their world is not the same;
  They move me not with joy or woe,
      They touch me not with blame.
 
 
  I hear no word that calls my life,
      Or owns my struggling powers;
  Those ancient ages had their strife,
      But not a strife like ours.
 
 
  Oh, not like men they move and speak,
      Those pictures in old panes!
  They alter not their aspect meek
      For all the winds and rains!
 
 
  Their thoughts are full of figures strange,
      Of Jewish forms and rites:
  A world of air and sea I range,
      Of mornings and of nights!
 

XI

 
  I turn me to the gospel-tale:—
      My hope is faint with fear
  That hungriest search will not avail
      To find a refuge here.
 
 
  A misty wind blows bare and rude
      From dead seas of the past;
  And through the clouds that halt and brood,
      Dim dawns a shape at last:
 
 
  A sad worn man who bows his face,
      And treads a frightful path,
  To save an abject hopeless race
      From an eternal wrath.
 
 
  Kind words he speaks—but all the time
      As from a formless height
  To which no human foot can climb—
      Half-swathed in ancient night.
 
 
  Nay, sometimes, and to gentle heart,
      Unkind words from him go!
  Surely it is no saviour's part
      To speak to women so!
 
 
  Much rather would I refuge take
      With Mary, dear to me,
  To whom that rough hard speech he spake—
      What have I to do with thee?
 
 
  Surely I know men tenderer,
      Women of larger soul,
  Who need no prayer their hearts to stir,
      Who always would make whole!
 
 
  Oftenest he looks a weary saint,
      Embalmed in pallid gleam;
  Listless and sad, without complaint,
      Like dead man in a dream.
 
 
  And, at the best, he is uplift
      A spectacle, a show:—
  The worth of such an outworn gift
      I know too much to know!
 
 
  How find the love to pay my debt?—
      He leads me from the sun!—
  Yet it is hard men should forget
      A good deed ever done!—
 
 
  Forget that he, to foil a curse,
      Did, on that altar-hill,
  Sun of a sunless universe,
      Hang dying, patient, still!
 
 
  But what is He, whose pardon slow
      At so much blood is priced?—
  If such thou art, O Jove, I go
      To the Promethean Christ!
 

XII

 
  A word within says I am to blame,
      And therefore must confess;
  Must call my doing by its name,
      And so make evil less.
 
 
  "I could not his false triumph bear,
      For he was first in wrong."
  "Thy own ill-doings are thy care,
      His to himself belong."
 
 
  "To do it right, my heart should own
      Some sorrow for the ill."
  "Plain, honest words will half atone,
      And they are in thy will."
 
 
  The struggle comes. Evil or I
      Must gain the victory now.
  I am unmoved and yet would try:
      O God, to thee I bow.
 
 
  The skies are brass; there falls no aid;
      No wind of help will blow.
  But I bethink me:—I am made
      A man: I rise and go.
 

XIII

 
  To Christ I needs must come, they say;
      Who went to death for me:
  I turn aside; I come, I pray,
      My unknown God, to thee.
 
 
  He is afar; the story old
      Is blotted, worn, and dim;
  With thee, O God, I can be bold—
      I cannot pray to him.
 
 
  Pray! At the word a cloudy grief
      Around me folds its pall:
  Nothing I have to call belief!
      How can I pray at all?
 
 
  I know not if a God be there
      To heed my crying sore;
  If in the great world anywhere
      An ear keeps open door!
 
 
  An unborn faith I will not nurse,
      Pursue an endless task;
  Loud out into its universe
      My soul shall call and ask!
 
 
  Is there no God—earth, sky, and sea
      Are but a chaos wild!
  Is there a God—I know that he
      Must hear his calling child!