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

MINOR DITTIES

IN THE NIGHT

 
As to her child a mother calls,
"Come to me, child; come near!"
Calling, in silent intervals,
The Master's voice I hear.
 
 
But does he call me verily?
To have me does he care?
Why should he seek my poverty,
My selfishness so bare?
 
 
The dear voice makes his gladness brim,
But not a child can know
Why that large woman cares for him,
Why she should love him so!
 
 
Lord, to thy call of me I bow,
Obey like Abraham:
Thou lov'st me because thou art thou,
And I am what I am!
 
 
Doubt whispers, Thou art such a blot
He cannot love poor thee:
If what I am he loveth not,
He loves what I shall be.
 
 
Nay, that which can be drawn and wooed,
And turned away from ill,
Is what his father made for good:
He loves me, I say still!
 

THE GIVER

 
To give a thing and take again
Is counted meanness among men;
To take away what once is given
Cannot then be the way of heaven!
 
 
But human hearts are crumbly stuff,
And never, never love enough,
Therefore God takes and, with a smile,
Puts our best things away a while.
 
 
Thereon some weep, some rave, some scorn,
Some wish they never had been born;
Some humble grow at last and still,
And then God gives them what they will.
 

FALSE PROPHETS

 
Would-be prophets tell us
We shall not re-know
Them that walked our fellows
In the ways below!
 
 
Smoking, smouldering Tophets
Steaming hopeless plaints!
Dreary, mole-eyed prophets!
Mean, skin-pledging saints!
 
 
Knowing not the Father
What their prophecies!
Grapes of such none gather,
Only thorns and lies.
 
 
Loving thus the brother,
How the Father tell?
Go without each other
To your heavenly hell!
 

LIFE-WEARY

 
O Thou that walkest with nigh hopeless feet
Past the one harbour, built for thee and thine.
Doth no stray odour from its table greet,
No truant beam from fire or candle shine?
 
 
At his wide door the host doth stand and call;
At every lattice gracious forms invite;
Thou seest but a dull-gray, solid wall
In forest sullen with the things of night!
 
 
Thou cravest rest, and Rest for thee doth crave,
The white sheet folded down, white robe apart.—
Shame, Faithless! No, I do not mean the grave!
I mean Love's very house and hearth and heart.
 

APPROACHES

 
When thou turn'st away from ill,
Christ is this side of thy hill.
 
 
When thou turnest toward good,
Christ is walking in thy wood.
 
 
When thy heart says, "Father, pardon!"
Then the Lord is in thy garden.
 
 
When stern Duty wakes to watch,
Then his hand is on the latch.
 
 
But when Hope thy song doth rouse,
Then the Lord is in the house.
 
 
When to love is all thy wit,
Christ doth at thy table sit.
 
 
When God's will is thy heart's pole,
Then is Christ thy very soul.
 

TRAVELLERS' SONG

 
Bands of dark and bands of light
Lie athwart the homeward way;
Now we cross a belt of Night,
Now a strip of shining Day!
 
 
Now it is a month of June,
Now December's shivering hour;
Now rides high loved memories' Moon,
Now the Dark is dense with power!
 
 
Summers, winters, days, and nights,
Moons, and clouds, they come and go;
Joys and sorrows, pains, delights,
Hope and fear, and yes and no.
 
 
All is well: come, girls and boys,
Not a weary mile is vain!
Hark—dim laughter's radiant noise!
See the windows through the rain!
 

LOVE IS STRENGTH

 
Love alone is great in might,
Makes the heavy burden light,
Smooths rough ways to weary feet,
Makes the bitter morsel sweet:
Love alone is strength!
 
 
Might that is not born of Love
Is not Might born from above,
Has its birthplace down below
Where they neither reap nor sow:
Love alone is strength!
 
 
Love is stronger than all force,
Is its own eternal source;
Might is always in decay,
Love grows fresher every day:
Love alone is strength!
 
 
Little ones, no ill can chance;
Fear ye not, but sing and dance;
Though the high-heaved heaven should fall
God is plenty for us all:
God is Love and Strength!
 

COMING

 
When the snow is on the earth
Birds and waters cease their mirth;
When the sunlight is prevailing
Even the night-winds drop their wailing.
 
 
On the earth when deep snows lie
Still the sun is in the sky,
And when most we miss his fire
He is ever drawing nigher.
 
 
In the darkest winter day
Thou, God, art not far away;
When the nights grow colder, drearer,
Father, thou art coming nearer!
 
 
For thee coming I would watch
With my hand upon the latch—
Of the door, I mean, that faces
Out upon the eternal spaces!
 

SONG OF THE WAITING DEAD

 
With us there is no gray fearing,
With us no aching for lack!
For the morn it is always nearing,
And the night is at our back.
At times a song will fall dumb,
A thought-bell burst in a sigh,
But no one says, "He will not come!"
She says, "He is almost nigh!"
 
 
The thing you call a sorrow
Is our delight on its way:
We know that the coming morrow
Comes on the wheels of to-day!
Our Past is a child asleep;
Delay is ripening the kiss;
The rising tear we will not weep
Until it flow for bliss.
 

OBEDIENCE

 
Trust him in the common light;
Trust him in the awesome night;
 
 
Trust him when the earth doth quake:
Trust him when thy heart doth ache;
 
 
Trust him when thy brain doth reel
And thy friend turns on his heel;
 
 
Trust him when the way is rough,
Cry not yet, It is enough!
 
 
But obey with true endeavour,
Else the salt hath lost his savour.
 

A SONG IN THE NIGHT

 
I would I were an angel strong,
An angel of the sun, hasting along!
 
 
I would I were just come awake,
A child outbursting from night's dusky brake!
 
 
Or lark whose inward, upward fate
Mocks every wall that masks the heavenly gate!
 
 
Or hopeful cock whose clarion clear
Shrills ten times ere a film of dawn appear!
 
 
Or but a glowworm: even then
My light would come straight from the Light of Men!
 
 
I am a dead seed, dark and slow:
Father of larks and children, make me grow.
 

DE PROFUNDIS

 
When I am dead unto myself, and let,
O Father, thee live on in me,
Contented to do nought but pay my debt,
And leave the house to thee,
 
 
Then shall I be thy ransomed—from the cark
Of living, from the strain for breath,
From tossing in my coffin strait and dark,
At hourly strife with death!
 
 
Have mercy! in my coffin! and awake!
A buried temple of the Lord!
Grow, Temple, grow! Heart, from thy cerements break!
Stream out, O living Sword!
 
 
When I am with thee as thou art with me,
Life will be self-forgetting power;
Love, ever conscious, buoyant, clear, and free,
Will flame in darkest hour.
 
 
Where now I sit alone, unmoving, calm,
With windows open to thy wind,
Shall I not know thee in the radiant psalm
Soaring from heart and mind?
 
 
The body of this death will melt away,
And I shall know as I am known;
Know thee my father, every hour and day,
As thou know'st me thine own!
 

BLIND SORROW

 
"My life is drear; walking I labour sore;
  The heart in me is heavy as a stone;
And of my sorrows this the icy core:
  Life is so wide, and I am all alone!"
 
 
Thou did'st walk so, with heaven-born eyes down bent
  Upon the earth's gold-rosy, radiant clay,
That thou had'st seen no star in all God's tent
  Had not thy tears made pools first on the way.
 
 
Ah, little knowest thou the tender care
  In a love-plenteous cloak around thee thrown!
Full many a dim-seen, saving mountain-stair
  Toiling thou climb'st—but not one step alone!
 
 
Lift but thy languid head and see thy guide;
  Let thy steps go in his, nor choose thine own;
Then soon wilt thou, thine eyes with wonder wide,
  Cry, Now I know I never was alone!
 

MOTES IN THE SUN

ANGELS

 
Came of old to houses lonely
  Men with wings, but did not show them:
Angels come to our house, only,
  For their wings, they do not know them!
 

THE FATHER'S WORSHIPPERS

 
'Tis we, not in thine arms, who weep and pray;
The children in thy bosom laugh and play.
 

A BIRTHDAY-WISH

 
Who know thee, love: thy life be such
  That, ere the year be o'er,
Each one who loves thee now so much,
  Even God, may love thee more!
 

TO ANY ONE

 
Go not forth to call Dame Sorrow
From the dim fields of Tomorrow;
Let her roam there all unheeded,
She will come when she is needed;
Then, when she draws near thy door,
She will find God there before.
 

WAITING

 
Lie, little cow, and chew thy cud,
  The farmer soon will shift thy tether;
Chirp, linnet, on the frozen mud,
  Sun and song will come together;
Wait, soul, for God, and thou shalt bud,
  He waits thy waiting with his weather.
 

LOST BUT SAFE

 
Lost the little one roams about,
Pathway or shelter none can find;
Blinking stars are coming out;
No one is moving but the wind;
It is no use to cry or shout,
All the world is still as a mouse;
One thing only eases her mind:
"Father knows I'm not in the house!"
 

MUCH AND MORE

 
When thy heart, love-filled, grows graver,
  And eternal bliss looks nearer,
Ask thy heart, nor show it favour,
  Is the gift or giver dearer?
 
 
Love, love on; love higher, deeper;
  Let love's ocean close above her;
Only, love thou more love's keeper,
  More, the love-creating lover.
 

HOPE AND PATIENCE

 
An unborn bird lies crumpled and curled,
A-dreaming of the world.
 
 
Round it, for castle-wall, a shell
Is guarding it well.
 
 
Hope is the bird with its dim sensations;
The shell that keeps it alive is Patience.
 

A BETTER THING

 
I took it for a bird of prey that soared
High over ocean, battled mount, and plain;
'Twas but a bird-moth, which with limp horns gored
The invisibly obstructing window-pane!
 
 
Better than eagle, with far-towering nerve
But downward bent, greedy, marauding eye,
Guest of the flowers, thou art: unhurt they serve
Thee, little angel of a lower sky!
 

A PRISONER

 
The hinges are so rusty
The door is fixed and fast;
The windows are so dusty
The sun looks in aghast:
Knock out the glass, I pray,
Or dash the door away,
Or break the house down bodily,
And let my soul go free!
 

TO MY LORD AND MASTER

 
Imagination cannot rise above thee;
Near and afar I see thee, and I love thee;
My misery away from me I thrust it,
For thy perfection I behold, and trust it.
 

TO ONE UNSATISFIED

 
When, with all the loved around thee,
  Still thy heart says, "I am lonely,"
It is well; the truth hath found thee:
  Rest is with the Father only.
 

TO MY GOD

 
Oh how oft I wake and find
  I have been forgetting thee!
I am never from thy mind:
  Thou it is that wakest me.
 

TRIOLET

 
Oh that men would praise the Lord
  For his goodness unto men!
Forth he sends his saving word,
  —Oh that men would praise the Lord!—
And from shades of death abhorred
  Lifts them up to light again:
Oh that men would praise the Lord
  For his goodness unto men!
 

THE WORD OF GOD

 
Where the bud has never blown
  Who for scent is debtor?
Where the spirit rests unknown
  Fatal is the letter.
 
 
In thee, Jesus, Godhead-stored,
  All things we inherit,
For thou art the very Word
  And the very Spirit!
 

EINE KLEINE PREDIGT

 
Graut Euch nicht, Ihr lieben Leute,
  Vor dem ungeheuren Morgen;
Wenn es kommt, es ist das Heute,
  Und der liebe Gott zu sorgen.
 

TO THE LIFE ETERNAL

 
Thou art my thought, my heart, my being's fortune,
  The search for thee my growth's first conscious date;
For nought, for everything, I thee importune;
  Thou art my all, my origin and fate!
 

HOPE DEFERRED

 
"Where is thy crown, O tree of Love?
  Flowers only bears thy root!
Will never rain drop from above
  Divine enough for fruit?"
 
 
"I dwell in hope that gives good cheer,
  Twilight my darkest hour;
For seest thou not that every year
  I break in better flower?"
 

FORGIVENESS

 
God gives his child upon his slate a sum—
  To find eternity in hours and years;
With both sides covered, back the child doth come,
  His dim eyes swollen with shed and unshed tears;
God smiles, wipes clean the upper side and nether,
And says, "Now, dear, we'll do the sum together!"
 

DEJECTION

 
O Father, I am in the dark,
  My soul is heavy-bowed:
I send my prayer up like a lark,
  Up through my vapoury shroud,
        To find thee,
        And remind thee
I am thy child, and thou my father,
Though round me death itself should gather.
 
 
Lay thy loved hand upon my head,
  Let thy heart beat in mine;
One thought from thee, when all seems dead,
  Will make the darkness shine
        About me
        And throughout me!
And should again the dull night gather,
I'll cry again, Thou art my father.
 

APPEAL

 
If in my arms I bore my child,
  Would he cry out for fear
Because the night was dark and wild
  And no one else was near?
 
 
Shall I then treat thee, Father, as
  My fatherhood would grieve?
I will be hopeful, though, alas,
  I cannot quite believe!
 
 
I had no power, no wish to be:
  Thou madest me half blind!
The darkness comes! I cling to thee!
  Be thou my perfect mind.