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

SCENE XIX.—A country churchyard. JULIAN seated on a tombstone. LILY gathering flowers and grass among the grass

  Julian.   O soft place of the earth! down-pillowed couch,   Made ready for the weary! Everywhere,   O Earth, thou hast one gift for thy poor children—   Room to lie down, leave to cease standing up,   Leave to return to thee, and in thy bosom   Lie in the luxury of primeval peace,   Fearless of any morn; as a new babe   Lies nestling in his mother's arms in bed:   That home of blessedness is all there is;   He never feels the silent rushing tide,   Strong setting for the sea, which bears him on,   Unconscious, helpless, to wide consciousness.   But thou, thank God, hast this warm bed at last   Ready for him when weary: well the green   Close-matted coverlid shuts out the dawn.   O Lilia, would it were our wedding bed   To which I bore thee with a nobler joy!   —Alas! there's no such rest: I only dream   Poor pagan dreams with a tired Christian brain.   How couldst thou leave me, my poor child? my heart   Was all so tender to thee! But I fear   My face was not. Alas! I was perplexed   With questions to be solved, before my face   Could turn to thee in peace: thy part in me   Fared ill in troubled workings of the brain.   Ah, now I know I did not well for thee   In making thee my wife! I should have gone   Alone into eternity. I was   Too rough for thee, for any tender woman—   Other I had not loved—so full of fancies!   Too given to meditation. A deed of love   Is stronger than a metaphysic truth;   Smiles better teachers are than mightiest words.   Thou, who wast life, not thought, how couldst thou help it?   How love me on, withdrawn from all thy sight—   For life must ever need the shows of life?   How fail to love a man so like thyself,   Whose manhood sought thy fainting womanhood?   I brought thee pine-boughs, rich in hanging cones,   But never white flowers, rubied at the heart.   O God, forgive me; it is all my fault.   Would I have had dead Love, pain-galvanized,   Led fettered after me by gaoler Duty?   Thou gavest me a woman rich in heart,   And I have kept her like a caged seamew   Starved by a boy, who weeps when it is dead.   O God, my eyes are opening—fearfully:   I know it now—'twas pride, yes, very pride,   That kept me back from speaking all my soul.   I was self-haunted, self-possessed—the worst   Of all possessions. Wherefore did I never   Cast all my being, life and all, on hers,   In burning words of openness and truth?   Why never fling my doubts, my hopes, my love,   Prone at her feet abandonedly? Why not   Have been content to minister and wait;   And if she answered not to my desires,   Have smiled and waited patient? God, they say,   Gives to his aloe years to breed its flower:   I gave not five years to a woman's soul!   Had I not drunk at last old wine of love?   I shut her love back on her lovely heart;   I did not shield her in the wintry day;   And she has withered up and died and gone.   God, let me perish, so thy beautiful   Be brought with gladness and with singing home.   If thou wilt give her back to me, I vow   To be her slave, and serve her with my soul.   I in my hand will take my heart, and burn   Sweet perfumes on it to relieve her pain.   I, I have ruined her—O God, save thou!

  [His bends his head upon his knees. LILY comes running up  to him, stumbling over the graves.]

  Lily.   Why do they make so many hillocks, father?   The flowers would grow without them.   Julian.                            So they would.   Lily.   What are they for, then?   Julian (aside).                  I wish I had not brought her;   She will ask questions. I must tell her all. (Aloud). 'Tis where they lay them when the story's done. Lily. What! lay the boys and girls? Julian. Yes, my own child— To keep them warm till it begin again. Lily. Is it dark down there?

[Clinging to JULIAN, and pointing down.]

  Julian.   Yes, it is dark; but pleasant—oh, so sweet!   For out of there come all the pretty flowers.   Lily.   Did the church grow out of there, with the long stalk   That tries to touch the little frightened clouds?   Julian.   It did, my darling.—There's a door down there   That leads away to where the church is pointing.

  [She is silent far some time, and keeps looking first down and then up. JULIAN carries her away.]

SCENE XX.—Portsmouth. LORD SEAFORD, partially recovered. Enter LADY GERTRUDE and BERNARD

  Lady Gertrude.   I have found an old friend, father. Here he is!   Lord S.   Bernard! Who would have thought to see you here!   Bern.   I came on Lady Gertrude in the street.   I know not which of us was more surprised.

[LADY GERTRUDE goes.]

  Bern.   Where is the countess?   Lord S.   Countess! What do you mean? I do not know.   Bern.   The Italian lady.   Lord S.   Countess Lamballa, do you mean? You frighten me!   Bern.   I am glad indeed to know your ignorance;   For since I saw the count, I would not have you   Wrong one gray hair upon his noble head.

[LORD SEAFORD covers his eyes with his hands.]

  You have not then heard the news about yourself?   Such interesting echoes reach the last   A man's own ear. The public has decreed   You and the countess run away together.   'Tis certain she has balked the London Argos,   And that she has been often to your house.   The count believes it—clearly from his face:   The man is dying slowly on his feet.   Lord S. (starting up and ringing the bell).   O God! what am I? My love burns like hate,   Scorching and blasting with a fiery breath!   Bern.   What the deuce ails you, Seaford? Are you raving?

Enter Waiter.

Lord S. Post-chaise for London—four horses—instantly.

[He sinks exhausted in his chair.]

SCENE XXI.—LILY in bed. JULIAN seated by her

  Lily.   O father, take me on your knee, and nurse me.   Another story is very nearly done.

[He takes her on his knees.]

  I am so tired! Think I should like to go   Down to the warm place that the flowers come from,   Where all the little boys and girls are lying   In little beds—white curtains, and white tassels.   —No, no, no—it is so dark down there!   Father will not come near me all the night.   Julian.   You shall not go, my darling; I will keep you.   Lily.   O will you keep me always, father dear?   And though I sleep ever so sound, still keep me?   Oh, I should be so happy, never to move!   'Tis such a dear well place, here in your arms!   Don't let it take me; do not let me go:   I cannot leave you, father—love hurts so.   Julian.   Yes, darling; love does hurt. It is too good   Never to hurt. Shall I walk with you now,   And try to make you sleep?   Lily.   Yes—no; for I should leave you then. Oh, my head!   Mother, mother, dear mother!—Sing to me, father.

[He tries to sing.]

      Oh the hurt, the hurt, and the hurt of love!       Wherever the sun shines, the waters go.       It hurts the snowdrop, it hurts the dove,       God on his throne, and man below.       But sun would not shine, nor waters go,       Snowdrop tremble, nor fair dove moan,       God be on high, nor man below,       But for love—for the love with its hurt alone.       Thou knowest, O Saviour, its hurt and its sorrows;       Didst rescue its joy by the might of thy pain:       Lord of all yesterdays, days, and to-morrows,       Help us love on in the hope of thy gain;       Hurt as it may, love on, love for ever;       Love for love's sake, like the Father above,       But for whose brave-hearted Son we had never       Known the sweet hurt of the sorrowful love.

[She sleeps at last. He sits as before, with the child leaning on his bosom, and falls into a kind of stupor, in which he talks.]

  Julian.   A voice comes from the vacant, wide sea-vault:   Man with the heart, praying for woman's love,   Receive thy prayer; be loved; and take thy choice:   Take this or this. O Heaven and Earth! I see—What   is it? Statue trembling into life   With the first rosy flush upon the skin?   Or woman-angel, richer by lack of wings?   I see her—where I know not; for I see   Nought else: she filleth space, and eyes, and brain—   God keep me!—in celestial nakedness.   She leaneth forward, looking down in space,   With large eyes full of longing, made intense   By mingled fear of something yet unknown;   Her arms thrown forward, circling half; her hands   Half lifted, and half circling, like her arms.   O heavenly artist! whither hast thou gone   To find my own ideal womanhood—   Glory grown grace, divine to human grown?   I hear the voice again: Speak but the word:   She will array herself and come to thee.   Lo, at her white foot lie her daylight clothes,   Her earthly dress for work and weary rest!   —I see a woman-form, laid as in sleep,   Close by the white foot of the wonderful.   It is the same shape, line for line, as she.   Long grass and daisies shadow round her limbs.   Why speak I not the word?———Clothe thee, and come,   O infinite woman! my life faints for thee.   Once more the voice: Stay! look on this side first:   I spake of choice. Look here, O son of man!   Choose then between them. Ah! ah!

[Silence.]

                                 Her I knew   Some ages gone; the woman who did sail   Down a long river with me to the sea;   Who gave her lips up freely to my lips,   Her body willingly into my arms;   Came down from off her statue-pedestal,   And was a woman in a common house,   Not beautified by fancy every day,   And losing worship by her gifts to me.   She gave me that white child—what came of her?   I have forgot.—I opened her great heart,   And filled it half-way to the brim with love—   With love half wine, half vinegar and gall—   And so—and so—she—went away and died?   O God! what was it?—something terrible—   I will not stay to choose, or look again   Upon the beautiful. Give me my wife,   The woman of the old time on the earth.   O lovely spirit, fold not thy parted hands,   Nor let thy hair weep like a sunset-rain   If thou descend to earth, and find no man   To love thee purely, strongly, in his will,   Even as he loves the truth, because he will,   And when he cannot see it beautiful—   Then thou mayst weep, and I will help thee weep.   Voice, speak again, and tell my wife to come.   'Tis she, 'tis she, low-kneeling at my feet!   In the same dress, same flowing of the hair,   As long ago, on earth: is her face changed?   Sweet, my love rains on thee, like a warm shower;   My dove descending rests upon thy head;   I bless and sanctify thee for my own:   Lift up thy face, and let me look on thee.   Heavens, what a face! 'Tis hers! It is not hers!   She rises—turns it up from me to God,   With great rapt orbs, and such a brow!—the stars   Might find new orbits there, and be content.   O blessed lips, so sweetly closed that sure   Their opening must be prophecy or song!   A high-entranced maiden, ever pure,   And thronged with burning thoughts of God and Truth!   Vanish her garments; vanishes the silk   That the worm spun, the linen of the flax;—   O heavens! she standeth there, my statue-form,   With the rich golden torrent-hair, white feet,   And hands with rosy palms—my own ideal!   The woman of my world, with deeper eyes   Than I had power to think—and yet my Lilia,   My wife, with homely airs of earth about her,   And dearer to my heart as my lost wife,   Than to my soul as its new-found ideal!   Oh, Lilia! teach me; at thy knees I kneel:   Make me thy scholar; speak, and I will hear.   Yea, all eternity—

[He is roused by a cry from the child.]

  Lily.   Oh, father! put your arms close round about me.   Kiss me. Kiss me harder, father dear.   Now! I am better now.

[She looks long and passionately in his face. Her eyes close; her head drops backward. She is dead.]

SCENE XXII.—A cottage-room. LILIA folding a letter

  Lilia.   Now I have told him all; no word kept back   To burn within me like an evil fire.   And where I am, I have told him; and I wait   To know his will. What though he love me not,   If I love him!—I will go back to him,   And wait on him submissive. Tis enough   For one life, to be servant to that man!   It was but pride—at best, love stained with pride,   That drove me from him. He and my sweet child   Must miss my hands, if not my eyes and heart.   How lonely is my Lily all the day,   Till he comes home and makes her paradise!   I go to be his servant. Every word   That comes from him softer than a command,   I'll count it gain, and lay it in my heart,   And serve him better for it.—He will receive me.

SCENE XXIII.—LILY lying dead. JULIAN bending over her

  Julian.   The light of setting suns be on thee, child!   Nay, nay, my child, the light of rising suns   Is on thee! Joy is with thee—God is Joy;   Peace to himself, and unto us deep joy;   Joy to himself, in the reflex of our joy.   Love be with thee! yea God, for he is Love.   Thou wilt need love, even God's, to give thee joy.   Children, they say, are born into a world   Where grief is their first portion: thou, I think,   Never hadst much of grief—thy second birth   Into the spirit-world has taught thee grief,   If, orphaned now, thou know'st thy mother's story,   And know'st thy father's hardness. O my God,   Let not my Lily turn away from me.   Now I am free to follow and find her.   Thy truer Father took thee home to him,   That he might grant my prayer, and save my wife.   I thank him for his gift of thee; for all   That thou hast taught me, blessed little child.   I love thee, dear, with an eternal love.   And now farewell!

[Kissing her.]

—no, not farewell; I come. Years hold not back, they lead me on to thee. Yes, they will also lead me on to her.

Enter a Jew.

  Jew.   What is your pleasure with me? Here I am, sir.   Julian.   Walk into the next room; then look at this,   And tell me what you'll give for everything.

[Jew goes.]

  My darling's death has made me almost happy.   Now, now I follow, follow. I'm young again.   When I have laid my little one to rest   Among the flowers in that same sunny spot,   Straight from her grave I'll take my pilgrim-way;   And, calling up all old forgotten skill,   Lapsed social claims, and knowledge of mankind,   I'll be a man once more in the loud world.   Revived experience in its winding ways,   Senses and wits made sharp by sleepless love,   If all the world were sworn to secrecy,   Will guide me to her, sure as questing Death.   I'll follow my wife, follow until I die.   How shall I face the Shepherd of the sheep,   Without the one ewe-lamb he gave to me?   How find her in great Hades, if not here   In this poor little round O of a world?   I'll follow my wife, follow until I find.

Re-enter Jew.

Well, how much? Name your sum. Be liberal.   Jew.   Let me see this room, too. The things are all   Old-fashioned and ill-kept. They're worth but little.   Julian.   Say what you will—only make haste and go.   Jew.   Say twenty pounds?   Julian.                    Well, fetch the money at once,   And take possession. But make haste, I pray.

SCENE XXIV.—The country-churchyard. JULIAN standing by LILY'S new-filled grave. He looks very worn and ill

  Julian.   Now I can leave thee safely to thy sleep;   Thou wilt not wake and miss me, my fair child!   Nor will they, for she's fair, steal this ewe-lamb   Out of this fold, while I am gone to seek   And find the wandering mother of my lamb.   I cannot weep; I know thee with me still.   Thou dost not find it very dark down there?   Would I could go to thee; I long to go;   My limbs are tired; my eyes are sleepy too;   And fain my heart would cease this beat, beat, beat.   O gladly would I come to thee, my child,   And lay my head upon thy little heart,   And sleep in the divine munificence   Of thy great love! But my night has not come;   She is not rescued yet. Good-bye, little one.

[He turns, but sinks on the grave. Recovering and rising.]

Now for the world—that's Italy, and her!

SCENE XXV.—The empty room, formerly Lilia's

Enter JULIAN.

  Julian.   How am I here? Alas! I do not know.   I should have been at sea.—Ah, now I know!   I have come here to die.

  [Lies down on the floor.]

                            Where's Lilia?   I cannot find her. She is here, I know.   But oh these endless passages and stairs,   And dreadful shafts of darkness! Lilia!   Lilia! wait for me, child; I'm coming fast,   But something holds me. Let me go, devil!   My Lilia, have faith; they cannot hurt you.   You are God's child—they dare not touch you, wife.   O pardon me, my beautiful, my own!

[Sings.]