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

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.]

      Wind, wind, thou blowest many a drifting thing       From sheltering cove, down to the unsheltered sea;       Thou blowest to the sea ray blue sail's wing—       Us to a new, love-lit futurity:       Out to the ocean fleet and float—       Blow, blow my little leaf-like boat.

[While he sings, enter LORD SEAFORD, pale and haggard.]

  JULIAN descries him suddenly.   What are you, man? O brother, bury me—   There's money in my pocket—

[Emptying the Jew's gold on the floor.]

by my child.

[Staring at him.]

  Oh! you are Death. Go, saddle the pale horse—   I will not walk—I'll ride. What, skeleton!   I cannot sit him! ha! ha! Hither, brute!   Here, Lilia, do the lady's task, my child,   And buckle on my spurs. I'll send him up   With a gleam through the blue, snorting white foam-flakes.   Ah me! I have not won my golden spurs,   Nor is there any maid to bind them on:   I will not ride the horse, I'll walk with thee.   Come, Death, give me thine arm, good slave!—we'll go.   Lord Seaford (stooping over him).   I am Seaford, Count. Julian. Seaford! What Seaford?

[Recollecting.]

—Seaford!

[Springing to his feet.]

Where is my wife?

[He falls into SEAFORD'S arms. He lays him down.]

Lord S. Had I seen him, she had been safe for me.

[Goes.]

  [JULIAN lies motionless. Insensibility passes into sleep. He

  wakes calm, in the sultry dusk of a summer evening.]   Julian.   Still, still alive! I thought that I was dead.   I had a frightful dream. 'Tis gone, thank God!

[He is quiet a little.]

  So then thou didst not take the child away   That I might find my wife! Thy will be done.   Thou wilt not let me go. This last desire   I send away with grief, but willingly.   I have prayed to thee, and thou hast heard my prayer:   Take thou thine own way, only lead her home.   Cleanse her, O Lord. I cannot know thy might;   But thou art mighty, with a power unlike   All, all that we know by the name of power,   Transcending it as intellect transcends   'The stone upon the ground—it may be more,   For these are both created—thou creator,   Lonely, supreme.                      Now it is almost over,   My spirit's journey through this strange sad world;   This part is done, whatever cometh next.   Morning and evening have made out their day;   My sun is going down in stormy dark,   But I will face it fearless.   The first act Is over of the drama.—Is it so?   What means this dim dawn of half-memories?   There's something I knew once and know not now!—   A something different from all this earth!   It matters little; I care not—only know   That God will keep the living thing he made.   How mighty must he be to have the right   Of swaying this great power I feel I am—   Moulding and forming it, as pleaseth him!   O God, I come to thee! thou art my life;   O God, thou art my home; I come to thee.   Can this be death? Lo! I am lifted up   Large-eyed into the night. Nothing I see   But that which is, the living awful Truth—   All forms of which are but the sparks flung out   From the luminous ocean clothing round the sun,   Himself all dark. Ah, I remember me:   Christ said to Martha—"Whosoever liveth,   And doth believe in me, shall never die"!   I wait, I wait, wait wondering, till the door   Of God's wide theatre be open flung   To let me in. What marvels I shall see!   The expectation fills me, like new life   Dancing through all my veins.                          Once more I thank thee   For all that thou hast made me—most of all,   That thou didst make me wonder and seek thee.   I thank thee for my wife: to thee I trust her;   Forget her not, my God. If thou save her,   I shall be able then to thank thee so   As will content thee—with full-flowing song,   The very bubbles on whose dancing waves   Are daring thoughts flung faithful at thy feet.   My heart sinks in me.—I grow faint. Oh! whence   This wind of love that fans me out of life?   One stoops to kiss me!—Ah, my lily child!   God hath not flung thee over his garden-wall.

  [Re-enter LORD SEAFORD with the doctor. JULIAN takes no heed of them. The doctor shakes his head.]

  My little child, I'll never leave thee more;   We are both children now in God's big house.   Come, lead me; you are older here than I   By three whole days, my darling angel-child!

  [A letter is brought in. LORD SEAFORD holds it before JULIAN'S eyes. He looks vaguely at it.]

  Lord S.   It is a letter from your wife, I think.   Julian (feebly).   A letter from my Lilia! Bury it with me—   I'll read it in my chamber, by and by:   Dear words should not be read with others nigh.   Lilia, my wife! I am going home to God.   Lord S. (pending over him).   Your wife is innocent. I know she is.

  JULIAN gazes at him blankly. A light begins to grow in his eyes. It grows till his face is transfigured. It vanishes. He dies.

PART V

  AND do not fear to hope. Can poet's brain   More than the Father's heart rich good invent?   Each time we smell the autumn's dying scent,   We know the primrose time will come again;   Not more we hope, nor less would soothe our pain.   Be bounteous in thy faith, for not mis-spent   Is confidence unto the Father lent:   Thy need is sown and rooted for his rain.   His thoughts are as thine own; nor are his ways   Other than thine, but by pure opulence   Of beauty infinite and love immense.   Work on. One day, beyond all thoughts of praise,   A sunny joy will crown thee with its rays;   Nor other than thy need, thy recompense.

A DREAM

SCENE I.—"A world not realized." LILY. To her JULIAN

Lily. O father, come with me! I have found her—mother!

SCENE II.—A room in a cottage. LILIA on her knees before a crucifix

Her back only is seen, for the Poet dares not look on her face. On a chair beside her lies a book, open at CHAPTER VIII. Behind her stands an Angel, bending forward, as if to protect her with his wings partly expanded. Appear JULIAN, with LILY in his arms. LILY looks with love on the angel, and a kind of longing fear on her mother   Julian.   Angel, thy part is done; leave her to me.   Angel.   Sorrowful man, to thee I must give place;   Thy ministry is stronger far than mine;   Yet have I done my part.—She sat with him.   He gave her rich white flowers with crimson scent,   The tuberose and datura ever burning   Their incense to the dusky face of night.   He spoke to her pure words of lofty sense,   But tinged with poison for a tranced ear.   He bade low music sound of faint farewells,   Which fixed her eyes upon a leafy picture,   Wherein she wandered through an amber twilight   Toward a still grave in a sleepy nook.   And ever and anon she sipped pale wine,   Rose-tinged, rose-odoured, from a silver cup.   He sang a song, each pause of which closed up,   Like a day-wearied daisy for the night,   With these words falling like an echo low:   "Love, let us love and weep and faint and die."   With the last pause the tears flowed at their will,   Without a sob, down from their cloudy skies.   He took her hand in his, and it lay still.—   blast of music from a wandering band   Billowed the air with sudden storm that moment.   The visible rampart of material things   Was rent—the vast eternal void looked in   Upon her awe-struck soul. She cried and fled.   It was the sealing of her destiny.   A wild convulsion shook her inner world;   Its lowest depths were heaved tumultuously;   Far unknown molten gulfs of being rushed   Up into mountain-peaks, rushed up and stood.   The soul that led a fairy life, athirst   For beauty only, passed into a woman's:   In pain and tears was born the child-like need   For God, for Truth, and for essential Love.   But first she woke to terror; was alone,   For God she saw not;—woke up in the night,   The great wide night alone. No mother's hand,   To soothe her pangs, no father's voice was near.   She would not come to thee; for love itself   Too keenly stung her sad, repentant heart,   Giving her bitter names to give herself;   But, calling back old words which thou hadst spoken,   In other days, by light winds borne afar,   And now returning on the storm of grief,   Hither she came to seek her Julian's God.   Farewell, strange friend! My care of her is over.   Julian.   A heart that knows what thou canst never know,   Fair angel, blesseth thee, and saith, farewell.

  [The Angel goes. JULIAN and LILY take his place. LILIA is praying, and they hear parts of her prayer.]

  Lilia.   O Jesus, hear me! Let me speak to thee.   No fear oppresses me; for misery   Fills my heart up too full for any fear.   Is there no help, O Holy? Am I stained   Beyond release?   Julian.                     Lilia, thy purity   Maketh thy heart abuse thee. I, thy husband,   Sinned more against thee, in believing ill,   Than thou, by ten times what thou didst, poor child,   Hadst wronged thy husband.   Lilia.                        Pardon will not do:   I need much more, O Master. That word go   Surely thou didst not speak to send away   The sinful wife thou wouldst not yet condemn!   Or was that crime, though not too great for pardon,   Too great for loving-kindness afterward?   Might she not too have come behind thy feet,   And, weeping, wiped and kissed them, Mary's son,   Blessed for ever with a heavenly grief?   Ah! she nor I can claim with her who gave   Her tears, her hair, her lips, her precious oil,   To soothe feet worn with Galilean roads:—   She sinned against herself, not against—Julian.   My Lord, my God, find some excuse for me.   Find in thy heart something to say for me,   As for the crowd that cried against thee, then,   When heaven was dark because thy lamp burned low.   Julian.   Not thou, but I am guilty, Lilia.   I made it possible to tempt thee, child.   Thou didst not fall, my love; only, one moment,   Beauty was queen, and Truth not lord of all.   Lilia.   O Julian, my husband, is it strange,   That, when I think of Him, he looks like thee?   That, when he speaks to comfort me, the voice   Is like thy voice, my husband, my beloved?   Oh! if I could but lie down at thy feet,   And tell thee all—yea, every thought—I know   That thou wouldst think the best that could be thought,   And love and comfort me. O Julian,   I am more thine than ever.—Forgive me, husband,   For calling me, defiled and outcast, thine.   Yet may I not be thine as I am His?   Would I might be thy servant—yes, thy slave,   To wash thy feet, and dress thy lovely child,   And bring her at thy call—more wife than I.   But I shall never see thee, till the earth   Lies on us both—apart—oh, far apart!   How lonely shall I lie the long, long years!   Lily.   O mother, there are blue skies here, and flowers,   And blowing winds, and kisses, mother dear!   And every time my father kisses me,   It is not father only, but another.   Make haste and come. My head never aches here.   Lilia.   Can it be that they are dead? Is it possible?   I feel as if they were near me!—Speak again,   Beloved voices; comfort me; I need it. Julian (singing).       Come to us: above the storm       Ever shines the blue.       Come to us: beyond its form       Ever lies the True. Lily (singing).       Mother, darling, do not weep—       All I cannot tell:       By and by you'll go to sleep,       And you'll wake so well. Julian (singing).       There is sunshine everywhere       For thy heart and mine:       God, for every sin and care,       Is the cure divine. Lily (singing).       We're so happy all the day,       Waiting for another!       All the flowers and sunshine stay,       Watching for my mother.   Julian.   My maiden! for true wife is always maiden   To the true husband: thou art mine for ever.   Lilia.   What gentle hopes keep passing to and fro!   Thou shadowest me with thine own rest, my God;   A cloud from thee stoops down and covers me.

[She falls asleep on her knees]

SCENE III.—JULIAN on the summit of a mountain-peak

The stars are brilliant around a crescent moon, hanging half-way between the mountain and the zenith. Below lies a sea of vapour. Beyond rises a loftier pinnacle, across which is stretched a bar of cloud. LILY lies on the cloud, looking earnestly into the mist below   Julian (gazing upward).   And thou wast with me all the time, my God,   Even as now! I was not far from thee.   Thy spirit spoke in all my wants and fears,   And hopes and longings. Thou art all in all.   I am not mine, but thine. I cannot speak   The thoughts that work within me like a sea.   When on the earth I lay, crushed down beneath   A hopeless weight of empty desolation,   Thy loving face was lighted then, O Christ,   With expectation of my joy to come,   When all the realm of possible ill should lie   Under my feet, and I should stand as now   Heart-sure of thee, true-hearted, only One.   Was ever soul filled to such overflowing   With the pure wine of blessedness, my God!   Filled as the night with stars, am I with joys;   Filled as the heavens with thee, am I with peace;   For now I wait the end of all my prayers—   Of all that have to do with old-world things:   What new things come to wake new prayers, my God,   Thou know'st; I wait on thee in perfect peace.

  [He turns his gaze downward.—From the fog-sea below half-rises a woman-form, which floats toward him.]

  Lo, as the lily lifts its shining bosom   From the lone couch of waters where it slept,   When the fair morn toucheth and waketh it;   So riseth up my lily from the deep   Where human souls are vexed in awful dreams!

[LILY spies her mother, darts down, and is caught in her arms. They land on JULIAN'S peak, and climb, LILY leading her mother.]

  Lily.   Come faster, mother dear; father is waiting.   Lilia.   Have patience with me, darling. By and by,   I think, I shall do better.—Oh my Julian!   Julian.   I may not help her. She must climb and come.

  [He reaches his hand, and the three are clasped in an infinite embrace.]

  O God, thy thoughts, thy ways, are not as ours:   They fill our longing hearts up to the brim.

  [The moon and the stars and the blue night close around them; and the poet awakes from his dream.]

A HIDDEN LIFE

TO MY FATHER: with my second volume of verse.

I

  Take of the first fruits, father, of thy care,   Wrapped in the fresh leaves of my gratitude,   Late waked for early gifts ill understood;   Claiming in all my harvests rightful share,   Whether with song that mounts the joyful air   I praise my God, or, in yet deeper mood,   Sit dumb because I know a speechless good,   Needing no voice, but all the soul for prayer.   Thou hast been faithful to my highest need;   And I, thy debtor, ever, evermore,   Shall never feel the grateful burden sore.   Yet most I thank thee, not for any deed,   But for the sense thy living self did breed   Of fatherhood still at the great world's core.