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

SCENE XIV.—Crowd about the Italian Opera-House. JULIAN. LILY in his arms. Three Students

  1st Student.   Edward, you see that long, lank, thread-bare man?   There is a character for that same novel   You talk of thunder-striking London with,   One of these days.   2nd St.                I scarcely noticed him;   I was so taken with the lovely child.   She is angelic.   3rd St.                    You see angels always,   Where others, less dim-sighted, see but mortals.   She is a pretty child. Her eyes are splendid.   I wonder what the old fellow is about.   Some crazed enthusiast, music-distract,   That lingers at the door he cannot enter!   Give him an obol, Frank, to pay old Charon,   And cross to the Elysium of sweet sounds.   Here's mine.   1st St.             And mine.   2nd St.                    And mine.

[3rd Student offers the money to JULIAN.]

  Julian   (very quietly).                 No, thank you, sir.   Lily.   Oh! there is mother!

[Stretching-her hands toward a lady stepping out of a carriage.]

  Julian.                        No, no; hush, my child!

  [_The lady looks round, and _LILY clings to her father. Women talking.]

  1st W.   I'm sure he's stolen the child. She can't be his.   2nd W.   There's a suspicious look about him.   3rd W                                            True;   But the child clings to him as if she loved him.

[JULIAN moves on slowly.]

SCENE XV.—JULIAN seated in his room, his eyes fixed on the floor. LILY playing in a corner

  Julian.   Though I am lonely, yet this little child—   She understands me better than the Twelve   Knew the great heart of him they called their Lord.   Ten times last night I woke in agony,   I knew not why. There was no comforter.   I stretched my arm to find her, and her place   Was empty as my heart. Sometimes my pain   Forgets its cause, benumbed by its own being;   Then would I lay my aching, weary head   Upon her bosom, promise of relief:   I lift my eyes, and Lo, the vacant world!

[He looks up and sees the child playing with his dagger.]

  You'll hurt yourself, my child; it is too sharp.   Give it to me, my darling. Thank you, dear.

[He breaks the hilt from the blade and gives it her.]

  'Here, take the pretty part. It's not so pretty   As it was once!

  [Thinking aloud.]

                     I picked the jewels out   To buy your mother the last dress I gave her.   There's just one left, I see, for you, my Lily.       Why did I kill Nembroni? Poor saviour I,   Saving thee only for a greater ill!       If thou wert dead, the child would comfort me;—   Is she not part of thee, and all my own?   But now——   Lily   (throwing down the dagger-hilt and running up to him).                    Father, what is a poetry?   Julian.   A beautiful thing,—of the most beautiful   That God has made.   Lily.                As beautiful as mother?   Julian.   No, my dear child; but very beautiful.   Lily.   Do let me see a poetry.   Julian   (opening a book).                         There, love!   Lily   (disappointedly).   I don't think that's so very pretty, father.   One side is very well—smooth; but the other

[Rubbing her finger up and down the ends of the lines.]

Is rough, rough; just like my hair in the morning,

[Smoothing her hair down with both hands.]

Before it's brushed. I don't care much about it.   Julian   (putting the book down, and taking her on his knee).   You do not understand it yet, my child.   You cannot know where it is beautiful.   But though you do not see it very pretty,   Perhaps your little ears could hear it pretty.

[He reads.]

  Lily   (looking pleased).   Oh! that's much prettier, father. Very pretty.   It sounds so nice!—not half so pretty as mother.   Julian.   There's something in it very beautiful,   If I could let you see it. When you're older   You'll find it for yourself, and love it well.   Do you believe me, Lily?   Lily.                        Yes, dear father.

[Kissing him, then looking at the book.]

  I wonder where its prettiness is, though;   I cannot see it anywhere at all.

[He sets her down. She goes to her corner.]

  Julian   (musing).   True, there's not much in me to love, and yet   I feel worth loving. I am very poor,   But that I could not help; and I grow old,   But there are saints in heaven older than I.   I have a world within me; there I thought   I had a store of lovely, precious things   Laid up for thinking; shady woods, and grass;   Clear streams rejoicing down their sloping channels;   And glimmering daylight in the cloven east;   There morning sunbeams stand, a vapoury column,   'Twixt the dark boles of solemn forest trees;   There, spokes of the sun-wheel, that cross their bridge,   Break through the arch of the clouds, fall on the earth,   And travel round, as the wind blows the clouds:   The distant meadows and the gloomy river   Shine out as over them the ray-pencil sweeps.—   Alas! where am I? Beauty now is torture:   Of this fair world I would have made her queen;—   Then led her through the shadowy gates beyond   Into that farther world of things unspoken,   Of which these glories are the outer stars,   The clouds that float within its atmosphere.   Under the holy might of teaching love,   I thought her eyes would open—see how, far   And near, Truth spreads her empire, widening out,   And brooding, a still spirit, everywhere;   Thought she would turn into her spirit's chamber,   Open the little window, and look forth   On the wide silent ocean, silent winds,   And see what she must see, I could not tell.   By sounding mighty chords I strove to wake   The sleeping music of her poet-soul:   We read together many magic words;   Gazed on the forms and hues of ancient art;   Sent forth our souls on the same tide of sound;   Worshipped beneath the same high temple-roofs;   And evermore I talked. I was too proud,   Too confident of power to waken life,   Believing in my might upon her heart,   Not trusting in the strength of living truth.   Unhappy saviour, who by force of self   Would save from selfishness and narrow needs!   I have not been a saviour. She grew weary.   I began wrong. The infinitely High,   Made manifest in lowliness, had been   The first, one lesson. Had I brought her there,   And set her down by humble Mary's side,   He would have taught her all I could not teach.   Yet, O my God! why hast thou made me thus   Terribly wretched, and beyond relief?

[He looks up and sees that the child has taken the book to her corner. She peeps into it; then holds it to her ear; then rubs her hand over it; then puts her tongue on it.]

  Julian (bursting into tears).   Father, I am thy child.   Forgive me this:   Thy poetry is very hard to read.

SCENE XVI.—JULIAN walking with LILY through one of the squares

  Lily.   Wish we could find her somewhere. 'Tis so sad   Not to have any mother! Shall I ask   This gentleman if he knows where she is?   Julian.   No, no, my love; we'll find her by and by.

BERNARD. and another Gentleman talking together.

  Bernard.   Have you seen Seaford lately?   Gentleman.                        No. In fact,   He vanished somewhat oddly, days ago.   Sam saw him with a lady in his cab;   And if I hear aright, one more is missing—   Just the companion for his lordship's taste.   You've not forgot that fine Italian woman   You met there once, some months ago?   Bern.                          Forgot her!   I have to try though, sometimes—hard enough:   Her husband is alive!   Lily.   Mother was Italy, father,—was she not?   Julian.   Hush, hush, my child! you must not say a word.   Gentleman.          Oh, yes; no doubt!   But what of that?—a poor half-crazy creature!   Bern.   Something quite different, I assure you, Harry.   Last week I saw him—never to forget him—   Ranging through Seaford's house, like the questing beast.   Gentleman.   Better please two than one, he thought—and wisely.   'Tis not for me to blame him: she is a prize   Worth sinning for a little more than little.   Lily   (whispering).   Why don't you ask them whether it was mother?   I am sure it was. I am quite sure of it.   Gentleman.   Look what a lovely child!   Bern.                    Harry! Good heavens!   It is the Count Lamballa. Come along.

SCENE XVII.—Julian's room. JULIAN. LILY asleep

  Julian.   I thank thee. Thou hast comforted me, thou,   To whom I never lift my soul, in hope   To reach thee with my thinking, but the tears   Swell up and fill my eyes from the full heart   That cannot hold the thought of thee, the thought   Of him in whom I live, who lives in me,   And makes me live in him; by whose one thought,   Alone, unreachable, the making thought,   Infinite and self-bounded, I am here,   A living, thinking will, that cannot know   The power whereby I am—so blest the more   In being thus in thee—Father, thy child.   I cannot, cannot speak the thoughts in me.   My being shares thy glory: lay on me   What thou wouldst have me bear. Do thou with me   Whate'er thou wilt. Tell me thy will, that I   May do it as my best, my highest joy;   For thou dost work in me, I dwell in thee.   Wilt thou not save my wife? I cannot know   The power in thee to purify from sin.   But Life can cleanse the life it lived alive.   Thou knowest all that lesseneth her fault.   She loves me not, I know—ah, my sick heart!—   I will love her the more, to fill the cup;   One bond is snapped, the other shall be doubled;   For if I love her not, how desolate   The poor child will be left! he loves her not.   I have but one prayer more to pray to thee:—   Give me my wife again, that I may watch   And weep with her, and pray with her, and tell   What loving-kindness I have found in thee;   And she will come to thee to make her clean.   Her soul must wake as from a dream of bliss,   To know a dead one lieth in the house:   Let me be near her in that agony,   To tend her in the fever of the soul,   Bring her cool waters from the wells of hope,   Look forth and tell her that the morn is nigh;   And when I cannot comfort, help her weep.   God, I would give her love like thine to me,   Because I love her, and her need is great.   Lord, I need her far more than thou need'st me,   And thou art Love down to the deeps of hell:   Help me to love her with a love like thine.   How shall I find her? It were horrible   If the dread hour should come, and I not near.   Yet pray I not she should be spared one pang,   One writhing of self-loathing and remorse,   For she must hate the evil she has done;   Only take not away hope utterly.   Lily (in her sleep).   Lily means me—don't throw it over the wall.   Julian (going to her).   She is so flushed! I fear the child is ill.   I have fatigued her too much, wandering restless.   To-morrow I will take her to the sea.

[Returning.]

  If I knew where, I would write to her, and write   So tenderly, she could not choose but come.   I will write now; I'll tell her that strange dream   I dreamed last night: 'twill comfort her as well.

[He sits down and writes.]

      My heart was crushed that I could hardly breathe.       I was alone upon a desolate moor;       And the wind blew by fits and died away—       I know not if it was the wind or me.       How long I wandered there, I cannot tell;       But some one came and took me by the hand.       I gazed, but could not see the form that led me,       And went unquestioning, I cared not whither.       We came into a street I seemed to know,       Came to a house that I had seen before.       The shutters were all closed; the house was dead.       The door went open soundless. We went in,       And entered yet again an inner room.       The darkness was so dense, I shrank as if       From striking on it. The door closed behind.       And then I saw that there was something black,       Dark in the blackness of the night, heaved up       In the middle of the room. And then I saw       That there were shapes of woe all round the room,       Like women in long mantles, bent in grief,       With long veils hanging low down from their heads,       All blacker in the darkness. Not a sound       Broke the death-stillness. Then the shapeless thing       Began to move. Four horrid muffled figures       Had lifted, bore it from the room. We followed,       The bending woman-shapes, and I. We left       The house in long procession. I was walking       Alone beside the coffin—such it was—       Now in the glimmering light I saw the thing.       And now I saw and knew the woman-shapes:       Undine clothed in spray, and heaving up       White arms of lamentation; Desdemona       In her night-robe, crimson on the left side;       Thekla in black, with resolute white face;       And Margaret in fetters, gliding slow—       That last look, when she shrieked on Henry, frozen       Upon her face. And many more I knew—       Long-suffering women, true in heart and life;       Women that make man proud for very love       Of their humility, and of his pride       Ashamed. And in the coffin lay my wife.       On, on, we went. The scene changed, and low hills       Began to rise on each side of the path       Until at last we came into a glen,       From which the mountains soared abrupt to heaven,       Shot cones and pinnacles into the skies.       Upon the eastern side one mighty summit       Shone with its snow faint through the dusky air;       And on its sides the glaciers gave a tint,       A dull metallic gleam, to the slow night.       From base to top, on climbing peak and crag,       Ay, on the glaciers' breast, were human shapes,       Motionless, waiting; men that trod the earth       Like gods; or forms ideal that inspired       Great men of old—up, even to the apex       Of the snow-spear-point. Morning had arisen       From Giulian's tomb in Florence, where the chisel       Of Michelangelo laid him reclining,       And stood upon the crest.                                 A cry awoke       Amid the watchers at the lowest base,       And swelling rose, and sprang from mouth to mouth,       Up the vast mountain, to its aerial top;       And "Is God coming?" was the cry; which died       Away in silence; for no voice said No.       The bearers stood and set the coffin down;       The mourners gathered round it in a group;       Somewhat apart I stood, I know not why.       So minutes passed. Again that cry awoke,       And clomb the mountain-side, and died away       In the thin air, far-lost. No answer came.       How long we waited thus, I cannot tell—       How oft the cry arose and died again.       At last, from far, faint summit to the base,       Filling the mountain with a throng of echoes,       A mighty voice descended: "God is coming!"       Oh! what a music clothed the mountain-side,       From all that multitude's melodious throats,       Of joy and lamentation and strong prayer!       It ceased, for hope was too intense for song.       A pause.—The figure on the crest flashed out,       Bordered with light. The sun was rising—rose       Higher and higher still. One ray fell keen       Upon the coffin 'mid the circling group.       What God did for the rest, I know not; it       Was easy to help them.—I saw them not.—       I saw thee at my feet, my wife, my own!       Thy lovely face angelic now with grief;       But that I saw not first: thy head was bent,       Thou on thy knees, thy dear hands clasped between.       I sought to raise thee, but thou wouldst not rise,       Once only lifting that sweet face to mine,       Then turning it to earth. Would God the dream       Had lasted ever!—No; 'twas but a dream;       Thou art not rescued yet.                                Earth's morning came,       And my soul's morning died in tearful gray.       The last I saw was thy white shroud yet steeped       In that sun-glory, all-transfiguring;       The last I heard, a chant break suddenly       Into an anthem. Silence took me like sound:       I had not listened in the excess of joy.

SCENE XVIII.—Portsmouth. A bedroom. LORD SEAFORD. LADY GERTRUDE

  Lord S.   Tis for your sake, my Gertrude, I am sorry.   If you could go alone, I'd have you go.   Lady Gertrude.   And leave you ill? No, you are not so cruel.   Believe me, father, I am happier   In your sick room, than on a glowing island   In the blue Bay of Naples.   Lord S.                         It was so sudden!   'Tis plain it will not go again as quickly.   But have your walk before the sun be hot.   Put the ice near me, child. There, that will do. Lady Gertrude. Good-bye then, father, for a little while.

[Goes.]

  Lord S.   I never knew what illness was before.   O life! to think a man should stand so little   On his own will and choice, as to be thus   Cast from his high throne suddenly, and sent   To grovel beast-like. All the glow is gone   From the rich world! No sense is left me more   To touch with beauty. Even she has faded   Into the far horizon, a spent dream   Of love and loss and passionate despair!   Is there no beauty? Is it all a show   Flung outward from the healthy blood and nerves,   A reflex of well-ordered organism?   Is earth a desert? Is a woman's heart   No more mysterious, no more beautiful,   Than I am to myself this ghastly moment?   It must be so—it must, except God is,   And means the meaning that we think we see,   Sends forth the beauty we are taking in.   O Soul of nature, if thou art not, if   There dwelt not in thy thought the primrose-flower   Before it blew on any bank of spring,   Then all is untruth, unreality,   And we are wretched things; our highest needs   Are less than we, the offspring of ourselves;   And when we are sick, they are not; and our hearts   Die with the voidness of the universe.   But if thou art, O God, then all is true;   Nor are thy thoughts less radiant that our eyes   Are filmy, and the weary, troubled brain   Throbs in an endless round of its own dreams.   And she is beautiful—and I have lost her!   O God! thou art, thou art; and I have sinned   Against thy beauty and thy graciousness!   That woman-splendour was not mine, but thine.   Thy thought passed into form, that glory passed   Before my eyes, a bright particular star:   Like foolish child, I reached out for the star,   Nor kneeled, nor worshipped. I will be content   That she, the Beautiful, dwells on in thee,   Mine to revere, though not to call my own.   Forgive me, God! Forgive me, Lilia!   My love has taken vengeance on my love.   I writhe and moan. Yet I will be content.   Yea, gladly will I yield thee, so to find   That thou art not a phantom, but God's child;   That Beauty is, though it is not for me.   When I would hold it, then I disbelieved.   That I may yet believe, I will not touch it.   I have sinned against the Soul of love and beauty,   Denying him in grasping at his work.