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

THE SHADOWS

  My little boy, with smooth, fair cheeks,     And dreamy, large, brown eyes,   Not often, little wisehead, speaks,     But hearing, weighs and tries.   "God is not only in the sky,"     His sister said one day—   Not older much, but she would cry     Like Wisdom in the way—   "He's in this room." His dreamy, clear,     Large eyes look round for God:   In vain they search, in vain they peer;     His wits are all abroad!   "He is not here, mamma? No, no;     I do not see him at all!   He's not the shadows, is he?" So     His doubtful accents fall—   Fall on my heart, no babble mere!     They rouse both love and shame:   But for earth's loneliness and fear,     I might be saying the same!   Nay, sometimes, ere the morning break     And home the shadows flee,   In my dim room even yet I take     Those shadows, Lord, for thee!

THE CHILD-MOTHER

  Heavily slumbered noonday bright   Upon the lone field, glory-dight,     A burnished grassy sea:   The child, in gorgeous golden hours,   Through heaven-descended starry flowers,     Went walking on the lea.   Velvety bees make busy hum;   Green flies and striped wasps go and come;     The butterflies gleam white;   Blue-burning, vaporous, to and fro   The dragon-flies like arrows go,     Or hang in moveless flight:—   Not one she followed; like a rill   She wandered on with quiet will;     Received, but did not miss;   Her step was neither quick nor long;   Nought but a snatch of murmured song     Ever revealed her bliss.   An almost solemn woman-child,   Not fashioned frolicsome and wild,     She had more love than glee;   And now, though nine and nothing more,   Another little child she bore,     Almost as big as she.   No silken cloud from solar harms   Had she to spread; with shifting arms     She dodged him from the sun;   Mother and sister both in heart,   She did a gracious woman's part,     Life's task even now begun!   They came upon a stagnant ditch,   The slippery sloping banks of which     More varied blossoms line;   Some ragged-robins baby spies,   Stretches his hands, and crows and cries,     Plain saying, "They are mine!"   What baby wants, that baby has—   A law unalterable as     The poor shall serve the rich:   They are beyond her reach—almost!   She kneels, she strains, and, too engrossed,     Topples into the ditch.   Adown the side she slanting rolled,   But her two arms convulsive hold     The precious baby tight;   She lets herself sublimely go,   And in the ditch's muddy flow     Stands up, in evil plight.   'Tis nothing that her feet are wet,   But her new shoes she can't forget—     They cost five shillings bright!   Her petticoat, her tippet blue,   Her frock, they're smeared with slime like glue!     But baby is all right!   And baby laughs, and baby crows;   And baby being right, she knows     That nothing can be wrong;   So, with a troubled heart yet stout,   She plans how ever to get out     With meditation long.   The high bank's edge is far away,   The slope is steep, and made of clay;     And what to do with baby?   For even a monkey, up to run,   Would need his four hands, every one:—     She is perplexed as may be.   And all her puzzling is no good!   Blank-staring up the side she stood,     Which, settling she, grew higher.   At last, seized with a fresh dismay   Lest baby's patience should give way,     She plucked her feet from the mire,   And up and down the ditch, not glad,   But patient, very, did promenade—     Splash, splash, went her small feet!   And baby thought it rare good fun,   Sucking his bit of pulpy bun,     And smelling meadow-sweet.   But, oh, the world that she had left—   The meads from her so lately reft—     Poor infant Proserpine!   A fabled land they lay above,   A paradise of sunny love,     In breezy space divine!   Frequent from neighbouring village-green   Came sounds of laughter, faintly keen,     And barks of well-known dogs,   While she, the hot sun overhead,   Her lonely watery way must tread     In mud and weeds and frogs!   Sudden, the ditch about her shakes;   Her little heart, responsive, quakes     With fear of uncouth woes;   She lifts her boding eyes perforce—   To see the huge head of a horse     Go past upon its nose.   Then, hark, what sounds of tearing grass   And puffing breath!—With knobs of brass     On horns of frightful size,   A cow's head through the broken hedge   Looks awful from the other edge,     Though mild her pondering eyes.   The horse, the cow are passed and gone;   The sun keeps going on and on,     And still no help comes near.—   At misery's last—oh joy, the sound   Of human footsteps on the ground!     She cried aloud, "I'm here!"   It was a man—oh, heavenly joy!   He looked amazed at girl and boy,     And reached his hand so strong:   "Give me the child," he said; but no!   Care would not let the burden go     Which Love had borne so long.   Smiling he kneels with outstretched hands,   And them unparted safely lands     In the upper world again.   Her low thanks feebly murmured, she   Drags her legs homeward painfully—     Poor, wet, one-chickened hen!   Arrived at length—Lo, scarce a speck   Was on the child from heel to neck,     Though she was sorely mired!   No tear confessed the long-drawn rack,   Till her mother took the baby back,     And the she cried, "I'm tired!"   And, intermixed with sobbing wail,   She told her mother all the tale,     Her wet cheeks in a glow:   "But, mother, mother, though I fell,   I kept the baby pretty well—     I did not let him go!"

HE HEEDED NOT

  Of whispering trees the tongues to hear,     And sermons of the silent stone;   To read in brooks the print so clear     Of motion, shadowy light, and tone—   That man hath neither eye nor ear     Who careth not for human moan.   Yea, he who draws, in shrinking haste,     From sin that passeth helpless by;   The weak antennae of whose taste     From touch of alien grossness fly—   Shall, banished to the outer waste,     Never in Nature's bosom lie.   But he whose heart is full of grace     To his own kindred all about,   Shall find in lowest human face,     Blasted with wrong and dull with doubt,   More than in Nature's holiest place     Where mountains dwell and streams run out.   Coarse cries of strife assailed my ear,     In suburb-ways, one summer morn;   A wretched alley I drew near     Whence on the air the sounds were borne—   Growls breaking into curses clear,     And shrill retorts of keener scorn.   Slow from its narrow entrance came,     His senses drowned with revels dire,   Scarce fit to answer to his name,     A man unconscious save of ire;   Fierce flashes of dull, fitful flame     Broke from the embers of his fire.   He cast a glance of stupid hate     Behind him, every step he took,   Where followed him, like following fate,     An aged crone, with bloated look:   A something checked his listless gait;     She neared him, rating till she shook.   Why stood he still to be disgraced?     What hindered? Lost in his employ,   His eager head high as his waist,     Half-buttressed him a tiny boy,   An earnest child, ill-clothed, pale-faced,     Whose eyes held neither hope nor joy.   Perhaps you think he pushed, and pled     For one poor coin to keep the peace   With hunger! or home would have led     And given him up to sleep's release:   Well he might know the good of bed     To make the drunken fever cease!   Not so; like unfledged, hungry bird     He stood on tiptoe, reaching higher,   But no expostulating word     Did in his anxious soul aspire;   With humbler care his heart was stirred,     With humbler service to his sire.   He, sleepless-pale and wrathful red,     Though forward leaning, held his foot   Lest on the darling he should tread:     A misty sense had taken root   Somewhere in his bewildered head     That round him kindness hovered mute.   The words his simmering rage did spill     Passed o'er the child like breeze o'er corn;   Safer than bee whose dodging skill     And myriad eyes the hail-shower scorn,   The boy, absorbed in loving will,     Buttoned his father's waistcoat worn.   Over his calm, unconscious face     No motion passed, no change of mood;   Still as a pool in its own place,     Unsunned within a thick-leaved wood,   It kept its quiet shadowy grace,     As round it all things had been good.   Was the boy deaf—the tender palm     Of him that made him folded round   The little head to keep it calm     With a hitherto to every sound—   And so nor curse nor shout nor psalm     Could thrill the globe thus grandly bound?   Or came in force the happy law     That customed things themselves erase?   Or was he too intent for awe?     Did love take all the thinking place?   I cannot tell; I only saw     An earnest, fearless, hopeless face.

THE SHEEP AND THE GOAT

  The thousand streets of London gray     Repel all country sights;   But bar not winds upon their way,   Nor quench the scent of new-mown hay     In depth of summer nights.   And here and there an open spot,     Still bare to light and dark,   With grass receives the wanderer hot;   There trees are growing, houses not—     They call the place a park.   Soft creatures, with ungentle guides,     God's sheep from hill and plain,   Flow thitherward in fitful tides,   There weary lie on woolly sides,     Or crop the grass amain.   And from dark alley, yard, and den,     In ragged skirts and coats,   Come thither children of poor men,   Wild things, untaught of word or pen—     The little human goats.   In Regent's Park, one cloudless day,     An overdriven sheep,   Come a hard, long, and dusty way,   Throbbing with thirst and hotness lay,     A panting woollen heap.   But help is nearer than we know     For ills of every name:   Ragged enough to scare the crow,   But with a heart to pity woe,     A quick-eyed urchin came.   Little he knew of field or fold,     Yet knew what ailed; his cap   Was ready cup for water cold;   Though creased, and stained, and very old,     'Twas not much torn, good hap!   Shaping the rim and crown he went,     Till crown from rim was deep;   The water gushed from pore and rent,   Before he came one half was spent—     The other saved the sheep.   O little goat, born, bred in ill,     Unwashed, half-fed, unshorn,   Thou to the sheep from breezy hill   Wast bishop, pastor, what you will,     In London dry and lorn!   And let priests say the thing they please,     My faith, though poor and dim,   Thinks he will say who always sees,   In doing it to one of these     Thou didst it unto him.

THE WAKEFUL SLEEPER

  When things are holding wonted pace   In wonted paths, without a trace     Or hint of neighbouring wonder,   Sometimes, from other realms, a tone,   A scent, a vision, swift, alone,     Breaks common life asunder.   Howe'er it comes, whate'er its door,   It makes you ponder something more—     Unseen with seen things linking:   To neighbours met one festive night,   Was given a quaint and lovely sight,     That set some of them thinking.   They stand, in music's fetters bound   By a clear brook of warbled sound,     A canzonet of Haydn,   When the door slowly comes ajar—   A little further—just as far     As shows a tiny maiden.   Softly she enters, her pink toes   Daintily peeping, as she goes,     Her long nightgown from under.   The varied mien, the questioning look   Were worth a picture; but she took     No notice of their wonder.   They made a path, and she went through;   She had her little chair in view     Close by the chimney-corner;   She turned, sat down before them all,   Stately as princess at a ball,     And silent as a mourner.   Then looking closer yet, they spy   What mazedness hid from every eye     As ghost-like she came creeping:   They see that though sweet little Rose   Her settled way unerring goes,     Plainly the child is sleeping.   "Play on, sing on," the mother said;   "Oft music draws her from her bed."—     Dumb Echo, she sat listening;   Over her face the sweet concent   Like winds o'er placid waters went,     Her cheeks like eyes were glistening.   Her hands tight-clasped her bent knees hold   Like long grass drooping on the wold     Her sightless head is bending;   She sits all ears, and drinks her fill,   Then rising goes, sedate and still,     On silent white feet wending.   Surely, while she was listening so,   Glad thoughts in her went to and fro     Preparing her 'gainst sorrow,   And ripening faith for that sure day   When earnest first looks out of play,     And thought out of to-morrow.   She will not know from what fair skies   Troop hopes to front anxieties—     In what far fields they gather,   Until she knows that even in sleep,   Yea, in the dark of trouble deep,     The child is with the Father.

A DREAM OF WAKING

  A child was born in sin and shame,     Wronged by his very birth,   Without a home, without a name,     One over in the earth.   No wifely triumph he inspired,     Allayed no husband's fear;   Intruder bare, whom none desired,     He had a welcome drear.   Heaven's beggar, all but turned adrift     For knocking at earth's gate,   His mother, like an evil gift,     Shunned him with sickly hate.   And now the mistress on her knee     The unloved baby bore,   The while the servant sullenly     Prepared to leave her door.   Her eggs are dear to mother-dove,     Her chickens to the hen;   All young ones bring with them their love,     Of sheep, or goats, or men!   This one lone child shall not have come     In vain for love to seek:   Let mother's hardened heart be dumb,     A sister-babe will speak!   "Mother, keep baby—keep him so;     Don't let him go away."   "But, darling, if his mother go,     Poor baby cannot stay."   "He's crying, mother: don't you see     He wants to stay with you?"   "No, child; he does not care for me."     "Do keep him, mother—do."   "For his own mother he would cry;     He's hungry now, I think."   "Give him to me, and let me try     If I can make him drink."   "Susan would hurt him! Mother will     Let the poor baby stay?"   Her mother's heart grew sore, but still     Baby must go away!   The red lip trembled; the slow tears     Came darkening in her eyes;   Pressed on her heart a weight of fears     That sought not ease in cries.   'Twas torture—must not be endured!—     A too outrageous grief!   Was there an ill could not be cured?     She would find some relief!   All round her universe she pried:     No dawn began to break:   In prophet-agony she cried—     "Mother! when shall we wake?"   O insight born of torture's might!—     Such grief can only seem.   Rise o'er the hills, eternal light,     And melt the earthly dream.

A MANCHESTER POEM

  'Tis a poor drizzly morning, dark and sad.   The cloud has fallen, and filled with fold on fold   The chimneyed city; and the smoke is caught,   And spreads diluted in the cloud, and sinks,   A black precipitate, on miry streets.   And faces gray glide through the darkened fog.     Slave engines utter again their ugly growl,   And soon the iron bands and blocks of stone   That prison them to their task, will strain and quiver   Until the city tremble. The clamour of bells,   Importunate, keeps calling pale-faced forms   To gather and feed those Samsons' groaning strength   With labour; and among the many come   A man and woman—the woman with her gown   Drawn over her head, the man with bended neck   Submissive to the rain. Amid the jar,   And clash, and shudder of the awful force,   They enter and part—each to a different task,   But each a soul of knowledge to brute force,   Working a will through the organized whole   Of cranks and belts and levers, pinions and screws   Wherewith small man has eked his body out,   And made himself a mighty, weary giant.     In labour close they pass the murky day,   'Mid floating dust of swift-revolving wheels,   And filmy spoil of quick contorted threads,   Which weave a sultry chaos all about;   Until, at length, old darkness, swelling slow   Up from the caves of night to make an end,   Chokes in its tide the clanking of the looms,   The monster-engines, and the flying gear.   'Tis Earth that draws her curtains, and calls home   Her little ones, and sets her down to nurse   Her tired children—like a mother-ghost   With her neglected darlings in the dark.   So out they walk, with sense of glad release,   And home—to a dreary place! Unfinished walls,   Earth-heaps, and broken bricks, and muddy pools   Lie round it like a rampart against the spring,   The summer, and all sieges of the year.     But, Lo, the dark has opened an eye of fire!   The room reveals a temple, witnessed by signs   Seen in the ancient place! Lo, here is light,   Yea, burning fire, with darkness on its skirts;   Pure water, ready to baptize; and bread;   And in the twilight edges of the light,   A book; and, for the cunning-woven veil,   Their faces—hiding God's own holiest place!   Even their bed figures the would-be grave   Where One arose triumphant, slept no more!   So at their altar-table they sit down   To eat their Eucharist; for, to the heart   That reads the live will in the dead command,   He is the bread, yea, all of every meal.     But as, in weary rest, they silent sit,   They gradually grow aware of light   That overcomes their lamp, and, through the blind,   Casts from the window-frame two shadow-glooms   That make a cross of darkness on the white.   The woman rises, eagerly looks out:   Lo, some fair wind has mown the earth-sprung fog,   And, far aloft, the white exultant moon,   From her blue window, curtained all with white,   Looks greeting them—God's creatures they and she!   Smiling she turns; he understands the smile:   To-morrow will be fair—as holy, fair!   And lying down, in sleep they die till morn,   While through their night throb low aurora-gleams   Of resurrection and the coming dawn.   They wake: 'tis Sunday. Still the moon is there,   But thin and ghostly—clothed upon with light,   As if, while they were sleeping, she had died.   They dress themselves, like priests, in clean attire,   And, through their lowly door, enter God's room.     The sun is up, the emblem on his shield.   One side the street, the windows all are moons   To light the other side that lies in shade.   See, down the sun-side, an old woman come   In a red cloak that makes the whole street glad!   A long-belated autumn-flower she seems,   Dazed by the rushing of the new-born life   Up hidden stairs to see the calling sun,   But in her cloak and smile they know the spring,   And haste to meet her through slow dissolving streets   Widening to larger glimmers of growing green.   Oh, far away the streets repel the spring!   Yet every stone in the dull pavement shares   The life that thrills anew the outworn earth,   A right Bethesda angel—for all, not some!     A street unfinished leads them forth at length   Where green fields bask, and hedgerow trees, apart,   Stand waiting in the air as for some good,   And the sky is broad and blue—and there is all!   No peaceful river meditates along   The weary flat to the less level sea!   No forest brown, on pillared stems, its boughs   Meeting in gothic arches, bears aloft   A groined vault, fretted with tremulous leaves!   No mountains lift their snows, and send their brooks   Down babbling with the news of silent things!   But love itself is commonest of all,   And loveliest of all, in all the worlds!   And he that hath not forest, brook, or hill,   Must learn to read aright what commoner books   Unfold before him. If ocean solitudes—   Then darkness dashed with glory, infinite shades,   And misty minglings of the sea and sky.   If only fields—the humble man of heart   Will revel in the grass beneath his foot,   And from the lea lift his glad eye to heaven,   God's palette, where his careless painter-hand   Sweeps comet-clouds that net the gazing soul;   Streaks endless stairs, and blots half-sculptured blocks;   Curves filmy pallors; heaps huge mountain-crags;   Nor touches where it leaves not beauty's mark.     To them the sun and air are feast enough,   As through field-paths and lanes they slowly walk;   But sometimes, on the far horizon dim   A veil is lifted, and they spy the hills,   Cloudlike and faint, yet sharp against the sky;   Then wakes an unknown want, which asks and looks   As for some thing forgot—loved long ago,   But on the hither verge of childhood dropt:   'Tis but home-sickness roused in the soul by Spring!   Fresh birth and eager growth, reviving life,   Which is because it would be, fill the world;   The very light is new-born with the grass;   The stones themselves are warm; the brown earth swells,   Filled, sponge-like, with dark beams, which nestle close   And brood unseen and shy, and potent warm   In every little corner, nest, and crack   Where buried lurks a blind and sleepy seed   Waiting the touch of the finger of the sun.   The mossy stems and boughs, where yet no life   Oozes exuberant in brown and green,   Are clad in golden splendours, crossed and lined   With shuttle-shadows weaving lovely change.   Through the tree-tops the west wind rushing goes,   Calling and rousing the dull sap within:   The fine jar down the stem sinks tremulous,   From airy root thrilling to earthy branch.   And though as yet no buddy baby dots   Sparkle the darkness of the hedgerow twigs,   The smoke-dried bark appears to spread and swell   In the soft nurture of the warm light-bath.     The sun had left behind him the keystone   Of his low arch half-way when they turned home,   Filled with pure air, and light, and operant spring:   Back, like the bees, they went to their dark house   To store their innocent spoil in honeyed thought.     But on their way, crossing a field, they chanced   Upon a spot where once had been a home,   And roots of walls still peered out, grown with moss.   'Twas a dead cottage, mouldered quite, where yet   Lay the old shadow of a vanished care;   The little garden's blunt, half-blotted map   Was yet discernible by thinner grass   Upon the walks. There, in the midst of dry   Bushes, dead flowers, rampant, uncomely weeds,   A single snowdrop drooped its snowy drop,   The lonely remnant of a family   That in the garden dwelt about the home—   Reviving with the spring when home was gone:   They see; its spiritual counterpart   Wakes up and blossoms white in their meek souls—   A longing, patient, waiting hopefulness,   The snowdrop of the heart; a heavenly child,   That, pale with the earthly cold, hangs its fair head   As it had nought to say 'gainst any world;   While they in whom it dwells, nor knows itself,   Inherit in their meekness all the worlds.     I love thee, flower, as a slow lingerer   Upon the verge of my humanity.   Lo, on thine inner leaves and in thy heart   The loveliest green, acknowledging the grass—   White-minded memory of lowly friends!   But almost more I love thee for the earth   Which clings to thy transfigured radiancy,   Uplifted with thee from thine abandoned grave;   Say rather the soiling of thy garments pure   Upon thy road into the light and air,   The heaven of thy new birth. Some gentle rain   Will one day wash thee white, and send the earth   Back to the earth; but, sweet friend, while it clings,   I love the cognizance of our family.     With careful hands uprooting it, they bore   The little plant a willing captive home—   Fearless of dark abode, because secure   In its own tale of light. As once of old   The angel of the annunciation shone,   Bearing all heaven into a common house,   It brings in with it field and sky and air.   A pot of mould its one poor tie to earth,   Its heaven an ell of blue 'twixt chimney-tops,   Its world the priests of that small temple-room,   It takes its prophet-place with fire and book,   Type of primeval spring, whose mighty arc   Hath not yet drawn the summer up the sky.   At night, when the dark shadow of the cross   Will enter, clothed in moonlight, still and wan   Like a pale mourner at its foot the flower   Will, drooping, wait the dawn. Then the dark bird   Which holds breast-caged the secret of the sun,   And therefore hangs himself a prisoner caged,   Will break into its song—Lo, God is light!     Weary and hopeful, to their sleep they go;   And all night long the snowdrop glimmers white   Thinning the dark, unknowing it, and unseen. * * * * *     Out of my verse I woke, and saw my room,   My precious books, the cherub-forms above,   And rose, and walked abroad, and sought the woods;   And roving odours met me on my way.     I entered Nature's church, a shimmering vault   Of boughs, and clouded leaves—filmy and pale   Betwixt me and the sun, while at my feet   Their shadows, dark and seeming solid, lay   Like tombstones o'er the vanished flowers of Spring.   The place was silent, save for the broken song   Of some Memnonian, glory-stricken bird   That burst into a carol and was still;   It was not lonely: golden beetles crept,   Green goblins, in the roots; and squirrel things   Ran, wild as cherubs, through the tracery;   And here and yonder a flaky butterfly   Was doubting in the air, scarlet and blue.     But 'twixt my heart and summer's perfect grace,   Drove a dividing wedge, and far away   It seemed, like voice heard loud yet far away   By one who, waking half, soon sleeps outright:—   Where was the snowdrop? where the flower of hope?   In me the spring was throbbing; round me lay   Resting fulfilled, the odour-breathing summer!   My heart heaved swelling like a prisoned bud,   And summer crushed it with its weight of light!   Winter is full of stings and sharp reproofs,   Healthsome, not hurtful, but yet hurting sore;   Summer is too complete for growing hearts—   Too idle its noons, its morns too triumphing,   Too full of slumberous dreams its dusky eves;   Autumn is full of ripeness and the grave;   We need a broken season, where the cloud   Is ruffled into glory, and the dark   Falls rainful o'er the sunset; need a world   Whose shadows ever point away from it;   A scheme of cones abrupt, and flattened spheres,   And circles cut, and perfect laws the while   That marvellous imperfection ever points   To higher perfectness than heart can think;   Therefore to us, a flower of harassed Spring,   Crocus, or primrose, or anemone,   Is lovely as was never rosiest rose;   A heath-bell on a waste, lonely and dry,   Says more than lily, stately in breathing white;   A window through a vaulted roof of rain   Lets in a light that comes from farther away,   And, sinking deeper, spreads a finer joy   Than cloudless noon-tide splendorous o'er the world:   Man seeks a better home than Paradise;   Therefore high hope is more than deepest joy,   A disappointment better than a feast,   And the first daisy on a wind-swept lea   Dearer than Eden-groves with rivers four.