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

THE WIND OF THE WORLD

Chained is the Spring. The Night-wind bold   Blows over the hard earth; Time is not more confused and cold,   Nor keeps more wintry mirth. Yet blow, and roll the world about—   Blow, Time, blow, winter's Wind! Through chinks of time heaven peepeth out,   And Spring the frost behind.

SABBATH BELLS

Oh holy Sabbath bells, Ye have a pleasant voice! Through all the land your music swells, And man with one commandment tells To rest and to rejoice. As birds rejoice to flee From dark and stormy skies To brighter lands beyond the sea Where skies are calm, and wings are free To wander and to rise; As thirsty travellers sing, Through desert paths that pass, To hear the welcome waters spring, And see, beyond the spray they fling Tall trees and waving grass; So we rejoice to know Your melody begun; For when our paths are parched below Ye tell us where green pastures glow And living waters run. LONDON, December 15, 1840.

FIGHTING

Here is a temple strangely wrought:   Within it I can see Two spirits of a diverse thought   Contend for mastery. One is an angel fair and bright,   Adown the aisle comes he, Adown the aisle in raiment white,   A creature fair to see. The other wears an evil mien,   And he hath doubtless slipt, A fearful being dark and lean,   Up from the mouldy crypt. * * * * * Is that the roof that grows so black?   Did some one call my name? Was it the bursting thunder crack   That filled this place with flame? I move—I wake from out my sleep:   Some one hath victor been! I see two radiant pinions sweep,   And I am borne between. Beneath the clouds that under roll   An upturned face I see— A dead man's face, but, ah, the soul   Was right well known to me! A man's dead face! Away I haste   Through regions calm and fair: Go vanquish sin, and thou shall taste   The same celestial air.

AFTER THE FASHION OF AN OLD EMBLEM

I have long enough been working down in my cellar,   Working spade and pick, boring-chisel and drill; I long for wider spaces, airy, clear-dark, and stellar:   Successless labour never the love of it did fill. More profit surely lies in a holy, pure quiescence,   In a setting forth of cups to catch the heavenly rain, In a yielding of the being to the ever waiting presence,   In a lifting of the eyes upward, homeward again! Up to my garret, its storm-windows and skylights!   There I'll lay me on the floor, and patient let the sun, The moon and the stars, the blueness and the twilights   Do what their pleasure is, and wait till they have done. But, lo, I hear a waving on the roof of great pinions!   'Tis the labour of a windmill, broad-spreading to the wind! Lo, down there goes a. shaft through all the house-dominions!   I trace it to a cellar, whose door I cannot find. But there I hear ever a keen diamond-drill in motion,   Now fast and now slow as the wind sits in the sails, Drilling and boring to the far eternal ocean,   The living well of all wells whose water never fails. So now I go no more to the cellar to my labour,   But up to my garret where those arms are ever going; There the sky is ever o'er me, and the wind my blessed neighbour,   And the prayer-handle ready turns the sails to its blowing. Blow, blow, my blessed wind; oh, keep ever blowing!   Keep the great windmill going full and free; So shall the diamond-drill down below keep going   Till in burst the waters of God's eternal sea.

A PRAYER IN SICKNESS

Thou foldest me in sickness;   Thou callest through the cloud; I batter with the thickness   Of the swathing, blinding shroud: Oh, let me see thy face, The only perfect grace   That thou canst show thy child. O father, being-giver,   Take off the sickness-cloud; Saviour, my life deliver   From this dull body-shroud: Till I can see thy face I am not full of grace,   I am not reconciled.

QUIET DEAD!

Quiet, quiet dead, Have ye aught to say From your hidden bed In the earthy clay? Fathers, children, mothers, Ye are very quiet; Can ye shout, my brothers? I would know you by it! Have ye any words That are like to ours? Have ye any birds? Have ye any flowers? Could ye rise a minute When the sun is warm? I would know you in it, I would take no harm. I am half afraid In the ghostly night; If ye all obeyed I should fear you quite. But when day is breaking In the purple east I would meet you waking— One of you at least— When the sun is tipping Every stony block, And the sun is slipping Down the weathercock. Quiet, quiet dead, I will not perplex you; What my tongue hath said Haply it may vex you! Yet I hear you speaking With a quiet speech, As if ye were seeking Better things to teach: "Wait a little longer, Suffer and endure Till your heart is stronger And your eyes are pure— A little longer, brother, With your fellow-men: We will meet each other Otherwhere again."

LET YOUR LIGHT SO SHINE

Sometimes, O Lord, thou lightest in my head   A lamp that well might pharos all the lands; Anon the light will neither rise nor spread:   Shrouded in danger gray the beacon stands! A pharos? Oh dull brain! poor dying lamp   Under a bushel with an earthy smell! Mouldering it stands, in rust and eating damp,   While the slow oil keeps oozing from its cell! For me it were enough to be a flower   Knowing its root in thee, the Living, hid, Ordained to blossom at the appointed hour,   And wake or sleep as thou, my Nature, bid; But hear my brethren in their darkling fright!   Hearten my lamp that it may shine abroad Then will they cry—Lo, there is something bright!   Who kindled it if not the shining God?

TRIOLET

When the heart is a cup   In the body low lying, And wine, drop by drop   Falls into that cup From somewhere high up,   It is good to be dying With the heart for a cup   In the body low lying.

THE SOULS' RISING

  See how the storm of life ascends Up through the shadow of the world! Beyond our gaze the line extends, Like wreaths of vapour tempest-hurled! Grasp tighter, brother, lest the storm Should sweep us down from where we stand, And we may catch some human form We know, amongst the straining band.   See! see in yonder misty cloud One whirlwind sweep, and we shall hear The voice that waxes yet more loud And louder still approaching near!   Tremble not, brother, fear not thou, For yonder wild and mystic strain Will bring before us strangely now The visions of our youth again!   Listen! oh listen! See how its eyeballs roll and glisten With a wild and fearful stare Upwards through the shining air, Or backwards with averted look, As a child were gazing at a book Full of tales of fear and dread, When the thick night-wind came hollow and dead.   Round about it, wavering and light. As the moths flock round a candle at night, A crowd of phantoms sheeted and dumb Strain to its words as they shrilly come: Brother, my brother, dost thou hear? They pierce through the tumult sharp and clear!   "The rush of speed is on my soul, My eyes are blind with things I see; I cannot grasp the awful whole, I cannot gird the mystery! The mountains sweep like mist away; The great sea shakes like flakes of fire; The rush of things I cannot see Is mounting upward higher and higher! Oh! life was still and full of calm In yonder spot of earthly ground, But now it rolls a thunder-psalm, Its voices drown my ear in sound! Would God I were a child again To nurse the seeds of faith and power; I might have clasped in wisdom then A wing to beat this awful hour! The dullest things would take my marks— They took my marks like drifted snow— God! how the footsteps rise in sparks, Rise like myself and onward go! Have pity, O ye driving things That once like me had human form! For I am driven for lack of wings A shreddy cloud before the storm!"   How its words went through me then, Like a long forgotten pang, Till the storm's embrace again Swept it far with sudden clang!— Ah, methinks I see it still! Let us follow it, my brother, Keeping close to one another, Blessing God for might of will! Closer, closer, side by side! Ours are wings that deftly glide Upwards, downwards, and crosswise Flashing past our ears and eyes, Splitting up the comet-tracks With a whirlwind at our backs!   How the sky is blackening! Yet the race is never slackening; Swift, continual, and strong, Streams the torrent slope along, Like a tidal surge of faces Molten into one despair; Each the other now displaces, A continual whirl of spaces; Ah, my fainting eyesight reels As I strive in vain to stare On a thousand turning wheels Dimly in the gloom descending, Faces with each other blending!— Let us beat the vapours back, We are yet upon his track.   Didst thou see a spirit halt Upright on a cloudy peak, As the lightning's horrid fault Smote a gash into the cheek Of the grinning thunder-cloud Which doth still besiege and crowd Upward from the nether pits Where the monster Chaos sits, Building o'er the fleeing rack Roofs of thunder long and black? Yes, I see it! I will shout Till I stop the horrid rout. Ho, ho! spirit-phantom, tell Is thy path to heaven or hell? We would hear thee yet again, What thy standing amongst men, What thy former history, And thy hope of things to be! Wisdom still we gain from hearing: We would know, we would know Whither thou art steering— Unto weal or woe!   Ah, I cannot hear it speaking! Yet it seems as it were seeking Through our eyes our souls to reach With a quaint mysterious speech, As with stretched and crossing palms One were tracing diagrams On the ebbing of the beach, Till with wild unmeasured dance All the tiptoe waves advance, Seize him by the shoulder, cover, Turn him up and toss him over: He is vanished from our sight, Nothing mars the quiet night Save a speck of gloom afar Like the ruin of a star!   Brother, streams it ever so, Such a torrent tide of woe? Ah, I know not; let us haste Upwards from this dreary waste, Up to where like music flowing Gentler feet are ever going, Streams of life encircling run Round about the spirit-sun! Up beyond the storm and rush With our lesson let us rise! Lo, the morning's golden flush Meets us midway in the skies! Perished all the dream and strife! Death is swallowed up of Life!

AWAKE!

  The stars are all watching;   God's angel is catching At thy skirts in the darkness deep!   Gold hinges grating,   The mighty dead waiting, Why dost thou sleep?   Years without number,   Ages of slumber, Stiff in the track of the infinite One!   Dead, can I think it?   Dropt like a trinket, A thing whose uses are done!   White wings are crossing,   Glad waves are tossing, The earth flames out in crimson and green   Spring is appearing,   Summer is nearing— Where hast thou been?   Down in some cavern,   Death's sleepy tavern, Housing, carousing with spectres of night?   There is my right hand!   Grasp it full tight and Spring to the light.   Wonder, oh, wonder!   How the life-thunder Bursts on his ear in horror and dread!   Happy shapes meet him;   Heaven and earth greet him: Life from the dead!

TO AN AUTOGRAPH-HUNTER

Seek not my name—it doth no virtue bear;   Seek, seek thine own primeval name to find— The name God called when thy ideal fair   Arose in deeps of the eternal mind. When that thou findest, thou art straight a lord   Of time and space—art heir of all things grown; And not my name, poor, earthly label-word,   But I myself thenceforward am thine own. Thou hearest not? Or hearest as a man   Who hears the muttering of a foolish spell? My very shadow would feel strange and wan   In thy abode:—I say No, and Farewell. Thou understandest? Then it is enough;   No shadow-deputy shall mock my friend; We walk the same path, over smooth and rough,   To meet ere long at the unending end.

WITH A COPY OF "IN MEMORIAM."

TO E.M. II Dear friend, you love the poet's song,   And here is one for your regard.   You know the "melancholy bard," Whose grief is wise as well as strong; Already something understand   For whom he mourns and what he sings,   And how he wakes with golden strings The echoes of "the silent land;" How, restless, faint, and worn with grief,   Yet loving all and hoping all,   He gazes where the shadows fall, And finds in darkness some relief; And how he sends his cries across,   His cries for him that comes no more,   Till one might think that silent shore Full of the burden of his loss; And how there comes sublimer cheer—   Not darkness solacing sad eyes,   Not the wild joy of mournful cries, But light that makes his spirit clear; How, while he gazes, something high,   Something of Heaven has fallen on him,   His distance and his future dim Broken into a dawning sky! Something of this, dear friend, you know;   And will you take the book from me   That holds this mournful melody, And softens grief to sadness so? Perhaps it scarcely suits the day   Of joyful hopes and memories clear,   When love should have no thought of fear, And only smiles be round your way; Yet from the mystery and the gloom,   From tempted faith and conquering trust,   From spirit stronger than the dust, And love that looks beyond the tomb, What can there be but good to win,   But hope for life, but love for all,   But strength whatever may befall?— So for the year that you begin, For all the years that follow this   While a long happy life endures,   This hope, this love, this strength be yours, And afterwards a larger bliss! May nothing in this mournful song   Too much take off your thoughts from time,   For joy should fill your vernal prime, And peace your summer mild and long. And may his love who can restore   All losses, give all new good things,   Like loving eyes and sheltering wings Be round us all for evermore!

THEY ARE BLIND

They are blind, and they are dead:   We will wake them as we go; There are words have not been said,   There are sounds they do not know:     We will pipe and we will sing—     With the Music and the Spring     Set their hearts a wondering! They are tired of what is old,   We will give it voices new; For the half hath not been told   Of the Beautiful and True.     Drowsy eyelids shut and sleeping!     Heavy eyes oppressed with weeping!     Flashes through the lashes leaping! Ye that have a pleasant voice,   Hither come without delay; Ye will never have a choice   Like to that ye have to-day:     Round the wide world we will go,     Singing through the frost and snow     Till the daisies are in blow. Ye that cannot pipe or sing,   Ye must also come with speed; Ye must come, and with you bring   Weighty word and weightier deed—     Helping hands and loving eyes!     These will make them truly wise—     Then will be our Paradise. March 27, 1852.

WHEN THE STORM WAS PROUDEST

  When the storm was proudest,   And the wind was loudest, I heard the hollow caverns drinking down below;   When the stars were bright,   And the ground was white, I heard the grasses springing underneath the snow.   Many voices spake—   The river to the lake, And the iron-ribbed sky was talking to the sea;   And every starry spark   Made music with the dark, And said how bright and beautiful everything must be.   When the sun was setting,   All the clouds were getting Beautiful and silvery in the rising moon;   Beneath the leafless trees   Wrangling in the breeze, I could hardly see them for the leaves of June.   When the day had ended,   And the night descended, I heard the sound of streams that I heard not through the day,   And every peak afar   Was ready for a star, And they climbed and rolled around until the morning gray.   Then slumber soft and holy   Came down upon me slowly, And I went I know not whither, and I lived I know not how;   My glory had been banished,   For when I woke it vanished; But I waited on its coming, and I am waiting now.

THE DIVER

FROM SCHILLER "Which of you, knight or squire, will dare   Plunge into yonder gulf? A golden beaker I fling in it—there!   The black mouth swallows it like a wolf! Who brings me the cup again, whoever, It is his own—he may keep it for ever!" 'Tis the king who speaks. He flings from the brow   Of the cliff, that, rugged and steep, Hangs out o'er the endless sea below,   The cup in the whirlpool's howling heap:— "Again I ask, what hero will follow, What hero plunge into yon dark hollow?" The knights and the squires the king about   Hear, and dumbly stare Into the wild sea's tumbling rout;   To win the beaker they hardly care! The king, for the third time, round him glaring— "Not one soul of you has the daring?" Speechless all, as before, they stand.   Then a squire, young, gentle, gay, Steps from his comrades' shrinking band,   Flinging his girdle and cloak away; And all the women and men that surrounded Gazed on the noble youth, astounded. And when he stepped to the rock's rough brow   And looked down on the gulf so black, The waters which it had swallowed, now Charybdis bellowing rendered back; And, with a roar as of distant thunder, Foaming they burst from the dark lap under. It wallows, seethes, hisses in raging rout,   As when water wrestles with fire, Till to heaven the yeasty tongues they spout;   And flood upon flood keeps mounting higher: It will never its endless coil unravel, As the sea with another sea were in travail! But, at last, slow sinks the writhing spasm,   And, black through the foaming white, Downward gapes a yawning chasm—   Bottomless, cloven to hell's wide night; And, sucked up, see the billows roaring Down through the whirling funnel pouring! Then in haste, ere the out-rage return again,   The youth to his God doth pray, And—ascends a cry of horror and pain!—   Already the vortex hath swept him away, And o'er the bold swimmer, in darkness eternal, Close the great jaws of the gulf infernal! Then the water above grows smooth as glass,   While, below, dull roarings ply; And trembling they hear the murmur pass—   "High-hearted youth, farewell, good-bye!" And hollower still comes the howl affraying, Till their hearts are sick with the frightful delaying. If the crown itself thou in should fling,   And say, "Who back with it hies Himself shall wear it, and shall be king,"   I would not covet the precious prize! What Ocean hides in that howling hell of it Live soul will never come back to tell of it! Ships many, caught in that whirling surge,   Shot sheer to their dismal doom: Keel and mast only did ever emerge,   Shattered, from out the all-gulping tomb!— Like the bluster of tempest, clearer and clearer, Comes its roaring nearer and ever nearer! It wallows, seethes, hisses, in raging rout,   As when water wrestles with fire, Till to heaven the yeasty tongues they spout,   Wave upon wave's back mounting higher; And as with the grumble of distant thunder, Bellowing it bursts from the dark lap under. And, see, from its bosom, flowing dark,   Something heave up, swan-white! An arm and a shining neck they mark,   And it rows with never relaxing might! It is he! and high his golden capture His left hand waves in success's rapture! With long deep breaths his path he ploughed,   And he hailed the heavenly day; Jubilant shouted the gazing crowd,   "He lives! he is there! he broke away! Out of the grave, the whirlpool uproarious, The hero hath rescued his life victorious!" He comes; they surround him with shouts of glee;   At the king's feet he sinks on the sod, And hands him the beaker upon his knee;   To his lovely daughter the king gives a nod: She fills it brim-full of wine sparkling and playing, And then to the king the youth turned him saying: "Long live the king!—Well doth he fare   Who breathes in this rosy light, But, ah, it is horrible down there!   And man must not tempt the heavenly Might, Or ever seek, with prying unwholesome, What he graciously covers with darkness dolesome! "It tore me down with a headlong swing;   Then a shaft in a rock outpours, Wild-rushing against me, a torrent spring;   It seized me, the double stream's raging force, And like a top, with giddy twisting, It spun me round—there was no resisting! "Then God did show me, sore beseeching   In deepest, frightfullest need, Up from the bottom a rock-ledge reaching—   At it I caught, and from death was freed! And, behold, on spiked corals the beaker suspended, Which had else to the very abyss descended! "For below me it lay yet mountain-deep   The purply darksome maw; And though to the ear it was dead asleep,   The ghasted eye, down staring, saw How with dragons, lizards, salamanders crawling, The hell-jaws horrible were sprawling. "Black swarming in medley miscreate,   In masses lumped hideously, Wallowed the conger, the thorny skate,   The lobster's grisly deformity; And bared its teeth with cruel sheen a Terrible shark, the sea's hyena. "And there I hung, and shuddering knew   That human help was none; One thinking soul mid the horrid crew,   In the ghastly solitude I was alone— Deeper than man's speech ever sounded, By the waste sea's dismal monsters surrounded. "I thought and shivered. Then something crept near,   Moved at once a hundred joints! Now it will have me!—Frantic with fear   I lost my grasp of the coral points! Away the whirl in its raging tore me, But it was my salvation, and upward bore me!" The king at the tale is filled with amaze:—   "The beaker, well won, is thine; And this ring I will give thee too," he says,   "Precious with gems that are more than fine, If thou dive yet once, and bring me the story— What thou sawst in the sea's lowest repertory." His daughter she hears with a tender dismay,   And her words sweet-suasive plead: "Father, enough of this cruel play!   For you he has done an unheard-of deed! And can you not master your soul's desire, 'Tis the knights' turn now to disgrace the squire!" The king he snatches and hurls the cup   Into the swirling pool:— "If thou bring me once more that beaker up,   My best knight I hold thee, most worshipful; And this very day to thy home thou shall lead her Who there for thee stands such a pitying pleader." A heavenly passion his being invades,   His eyes dart a lightning ray; He sees on her beauty the flushing shades,   He sees her grow pallid and sink away! Determination thorough him flashes, And downward for life or for death he dashes! They hear the dull roar!—it is turning again,   Its herald the thunderous brawl! Downward they bend with loving strain:   They come! they are coming, the waters all!— They rush up!—they rush down!—up, down, for ever! The youth again bring they never.