The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 2

SHALL THE DEAD PRAISE THEE?

 
I cannot praise thee. By his instrument
  The master sits, and moves nor foot nor hand;
For see the organ-pipes this, that way bent,
  Leaning, o'erthrown, like wheat-stalks tempest-fanned!
 
 
I well could praise thee for a flower, a dove,
  But not for life that is not life in me;
Not for a being that is less than love—
  A barren shoal half lifted from a sea!
 
 
Unto a land where no wind bloweth ships
  Thy wind one day will blow me to my own:
Rather I'd kiss no more their loving lips
  Than carry them a heart so poor and prone!
 
 
I bless thee, Father, thou art what thou art,
  That thou dost know thyself what thou dost know—
A perfect, simple, tender, rhythmic heart,
  Beating its blood to all in bounteous flow.
 
 
And I can bless thee too for every smart,
  For every disappointment, ache, and fear;
For every hook thou fixest in my heart,
  For every burning cord that draws me near.
 
 
But prayer these wake, not song. Thyself I crave.
  Come thou, or all thy gifts away I fling.
Thou silent, I am but an empty grave:
  Think to me, Father, and I am a king!
 
 
My organ-pipes will then stand up awake,
  Their life soar, as from smouldering wood the blaze;
And swift contending harmonies shall shake
  Thy windows with a storm of jubilant praise.
 

A YEAR SONG

 
Sighing above,
  Rustling below,
Thorough the woods
  The winds go.
Beneath, dead crowds;
  Above, life bare;
And the besom tempest
  Sweeps the air:
Heart, leave thy woe:
Let the dead things go.
 
 
Through the brown
  Gold doth push;
Misty green
  Veils the bush.
Here a twitter,
  There a croak!
They are coming—
  The spring-folk!
Heart, be not numb;
Let the live things come.
 
 
Through the beech
  The winds go,
With gentle speech,
  Long and slow.
The grass is fine,
  And soft to lie in:
The sun doth shine
  The blue sky in:
Heart, be alive;
Let the new things thrive.
 
 
Round again!
  Here art thou,
A rimy fruit
  On a bare bough!
Winter comes,
  Winter and snow;
And a weary sighing
  To fall and go!
Heart, thy hour shall be;
Thy dead will comfort thee.
 

SONG

 
Why do the houses stand
   When they that built them are gone;
   When remaineth even of one
That lived there and loved and planned
Not a face, not an eye, not a hand,
   Only here and there a bone?
Why do the houses stand
   When they who built them are gone?
 
 
Oft in the moonlighted land
   When the day is overblown,
   With happy memorial moan
Sweet ghosts in a loving band
Roam through the houses that stand—
   For the builders are not gone.
 

FOR WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS, THERE WILL YOUR HEART BE ALSO

 
   The miser lay on his lonely bed;
      Life's candle was burning dim.
His heart in an iron chest was hid
Under heaps of gold and an iron lid;
   And whether it were alive or dead
      It never troubled him.
 
 
   Slowly out of his body he crept.
      He said, "I am just the same!
Only I want my heart in my breast;
I will go and fetch it out of my chest!"
  Through the dark a darker shadow he leapt,
    Saying "Hell is a fabled flame!"
 
 
  He opened the lid. Oh, Hell's own night!
    His ghost-eyes saw no gold!—
Empty and swept! Not a gleam was there!
In goes his hand, but the chest is bare!
  Ghost-fingers, aha! have only might
  To close, not to clasp and hold!
 
 
  But his heart he saw, and he made a clutch
    At the fungous puff-ball of sin:
Eaten with moths, and fretted with rust,
He grasped a handful of rotten dust,
  And shrieked, as ghosts may, at the crumbling touch,
    But hid it his breast within.
 
 
  And some there are who see him sit
    Under the church, apart,
Counting out coins and coins of gold
Heap by heap on the dank death-mould:
  Alas poor ghost and his sore lack of wit—
    They breed in the dust of his heart!
 
 
  Another miser has now his chest,
    And it hoards wealth more and more;
Like ferrets his hands go in and out,
Burrowing, tossing the gold about—
  Nor heed the heart that, gone from his breast,
    Is the cold heap's bloodless core.
 
 
  Now wherein differ old ghosts that sit
    Counting ghost-coins all day
From the man who clings with spirit prone
To whatever can never be his own?
  Who will leave the world with not one whit
    But a heart all eaten away?
 

THE ASTHMATIC MAN TO THE SATAN THAT BINDS HIM

 
Satan, avaunt!
  Nay, take thine hour,
Thou canst not daunt,
  Thou hast no power;
Be welcome to thy nest,
Though it be in my breast.
 
 
Burrow amain;
  Dig like a mole;
Fill every vein
  With half-burnt coal;
Puff the keen dust about,
And all to choke me out.
 
 
Fill music's ways
  With creaking cries,
That no loud praise
  May climb the skies;
And on my labouring chest
Lay mountains of unrest.
 
 
My slumber steep
  In dreams of haste,
That only sleep,
  No rest, I taste—
With stiflings, rimes of rote,
And fingers on my throat.
 
 
Satan, thy might
  I do defy;
Live core of night
  I patient lie:
A wind comes up the gray
Will blow thee clean away.
 
 
Christ's angel, Death,
  All radiant white,
With one cold breath
  Will scare thee quite,
And give my lungs an air
As fresh as answered prayer.
 
 
So, Satan, do
  Thy worst with me
Until the True
  Shall set me free,
And end what he began,
By making me a man.
 

SONG-SERMON

 
Lord, what is man
That thou art mindful of him!
Though in creation's van,
Lord, what is man!
He wills less than he can,
Lets his ideal scoff him!
Lord, what is man
That thou art mindful of him!
 

SHADOWS

 
All things are shadows of thee, Lord;
  The sun himself is but thy shade;
My spirit is the shadow of thy word,
  A thing that thou hast said.
 
 
Diamonds are shadows of the sun,
  They gleam as after him they hark:
My soul some arrows of thy light hath won.
  And feebly fights the dark!
 
 
All knowledges are broken shades,
  In gulfs of dark a scattered horde:
Together rush the parted glory-grades—
  Then, lo, thy garment, Lord!
 
 
My soul, the shadow, still is light
  Because the shadow falls from thee;
I turn, dull candle, to the centre bright,
  And home flit shadowy.
 
 
Shine, Lord; shine me thy shadow still;
  The brighter I, the more thy shade!
My motion be thy lovely moveless will!
  My darkness, light delayed!
 

A WINTER PRAYER

 
Come through the gloom of clouded skies,
  The slow dim rain and fog athwart;
Through east winds keen with wrong and lies
  Come and lift up my hopeless heart.
 
 
Come through the sickness and the pain,
  The sore unrest that tosses still;
Through aching dark that hides the gain
  Come and arouse my fainting will.
 
 
Come through the prate of foolish words,
  The science with no God behind;
Through all the pangs of untuned chords
  Speak wisdom to my shaken mind.
 
 
Through all the fears that spirits bow
  Of what hath been, or may befall,
Come down and talk with me, for thou
  Canst tell me all about them all.
 
 
Hear, hear my sad lone heart entreat,
  Heart of all joy, below, above!
Come near and let me kiss thy feet,
  And name the names of those I love!
 

SONG OF A POOR PILGRIM

 
Roses all the rosy way!
  Roses to the rosier west
Where the roses of the day
  Cling to night's unrosy breast!
 
 
Thou who mak'st the roses, why
  Give to every leaf a thorn?
On thy rosy highway I
  Still am by thy roses torn!
 
 
Pardon! I will not mistake
  These good thorns that make me fret!
Goads to urge me, stings to wake,
  For my freedom they are set.
 
 
Yea, on one steep mountain-side,
  Climbing to a fancied fold,
Roses grasped had let me slide
  But the thorns did keep their hold.
 
 
Out of darkness light is born,
  Out of weakness make me strong:
One glad day will every thorn
  Break into a rose of song.
 
 
Though like sparrow sit thy bird
  Lonely on the house-top dark,
By the rosy dawning stirred
  Up will soar thy praising lark;
 
 
Roses, roses all his song!
  Roses in a gorgeous feast!
Roses in a royal throng,
  Surging, rosing from the east!
 

AN EVENING PRAYER

 
I am a bubble
   Upon thy ever-moving, resting sea:
Oh, rest me now from tossing, trespass, trouble!
   Take me down into thee.
 
 
Give me thy peace.
   My heart is aching with unquietness:
Oh, make its inharmonious beating cease!
   Thy hand upon it press.
 
 
My Night! my Day!
   Swift night and day betwixt, my world doth reel:
Potter, take not thy hand from off the clay
   That whirls upon thy wheel.
 
 
O Heart, I cry
   For love and life, pardon and hope and strength!
O Father, I am thine; I shall not die,
   But I shall sleep at length!
 

SONG-SERMON

 
Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs,
For as his work thou giv'st the man.
From us, not thee, come all our wrongs;
Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs:
With small-cord whips and scorpion thongs
Thou lay'st on every ill thy ban.
Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs,
For as his work thou giv'st the man.
 

A DREAM-SONG

 
The stars are spinning their threads,
   And the clouds are the dust that flies,
And the suns are weaving them up
   For the day when the sleepers arise.
 
 
The ocean in music rolls,
  The gems are turning to eyes,
And the trees are gathering souls
  For the day when the sleepers arise.
 
 
The weepers are learning to smile,
  And laughter to glean the sighs,
And hearts to bury their care and guile
  For the day when the sleepers arise.
 
 
Oh, the dews and the moths and the daisy-red,
  The larks and the glimmers and flows!
The lilies and sparrows and daily bread,
  And the something that nobody knows!
 

CHRISTMAS, 1880

 
Great-hearted child, thy very being The Son,
  Who know'st the hearts of all us prodigals;—
For who is prodigal but he who has gone
  Far from the true to heart it with the false?—
  Who, who but thou, that, from the animals',
    Know'st all the hearts, up to the Father's own,
    Can tell what it would be to be alone!
 
 
Alone! No father!—At the very thought
  Thou, the eternal light, wast once aghast;
A death in death for thee it almost wrought!
  But thou didst haste, about to breathe thy last,
  And call'dst out Father ere thy spirit passed,
    Exhausted in fulfilling not any vow,
    But doing his will who greater is than thou.
 
 
That we might know him, thou didst come and live;
  That we might find him, thou didst come and die;
The son-heart, brother, thy son-being give—
  We too would love the father perfectly,
  And to his bosom go back with the cry,
    Father, into thy hands I give the heart
    Which left thee but to learn how good thou art!
 
 
There are but two in all the universe—
  The father and his children—not a third;
Nor, all the weary time, fell any curse!
  Not once dropped from its nest an unfledged bird
  But thou wast with it! Never sorrow stirred
    But a love-pull it was upon the chain
    That draws the children to the father again!
 
 
O Jesus Christ, babe, man, eternal son,
  Take pity! we are poor where thou art rich:
Our hearts are small; and yet there is not one
  In all thy father's noisy nursery which,
  Merry, or mourning in its narrow niche,
    Needs not thy father's heart, this very now,
    With all his being's being, even as thou!
 

RONDEL

 
I do not know thy final will,
  It is too good for me to know:
  Thou willest that I mercy show,
That I take heed and do no ill,
That I the needy warm and fill,
  Nor stones at any sinner throw;
But I know not thy final will—
  It is too good for me to know.
 
 
I know thy love unspeakable—
  For love's sake able to send woe!
  To find thine own thou lost didst go,
And wouldst for men thy blood yet spill!—
How should I know thy final will,
  Godwise too good for me to know!
 

THE SPARROW

 
O Lord, I cannot but believe
The birds do sing thy praises then, when they sing to one another,
And they are lying seed-sown land when the winter makes them grieve,
Their little bosoms breeding songs for the summer to unsmother!
 
 
If thou hadst finished me, O Lord,
Nor left out of me part of that great gift that goes to singing,
I sure had known the meaning high of the songster's praising word,
Had known upon what thoughts of thee his pearly talk he was stringing!
 
 
I should have read the wisdom hid
In the storm-inspired melody of thy thrush's bosom solemn:
I should not then have understood what thy free spirit did
To make the lark-soprano mount like to a geyser-column!
 
 
I think I almost understand
Thy owl, his muffled swiftness, moon-round eyes, and intoned hooting;
I think I could take up the part of a night-owl in the land,
With yellow moon and starry things day-dreamers all confuting.
 
 
But 'mong thy creatures that do sing
Perhaps of all I likest am to the housetop-haunting sparrow,
That flies brief, sudden flights upon a dumpy, fluttering wing,
And chirps thy praises from a throat that's very short and narrow.
 
 
But if thy sparrow praise thee well
By singing well thy song, nor letting noisy traffic quell it,
It may be that, in some remote and leafy heavenly dell,
He may with a trumpet-throat awake, and a trumpet-song to swell it!