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

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.

TO THE CLOUDS

Through the unchanging heaven, as ye have sped, Speed onward still, a strange wild company, Fleet children of the waters! Glorious ye, Whether the sun lift up his shining head, High throned at noontide and established Among the shifting pillars, or we see The sable ghosts of air sleep mournfully Against the sunlight, passionless and dead! Take thus a glory, oh thou higher Sun, From all the cloudy labour of man's hand— Whether the quickening nations rise and run, Or in the market-place we idly stand Casting huge shadows over these thy plains— Even thence, O God, draw thy rich gifts of rains.

SECOND SIGHT

Rich is the fancy which can double back All seeming forms, and from cold icicles Build up high glittering palaces where dwells Summer perfection, moulding all this wrack To spirit symmetry, and doth not lack The power to hear amidst the funeral bells The eternal heart's wind-melody which swells In whirlwind flashes all along its track! So hath the sun made all the winter mine With gardens springing round me fresh and fair; On hidden leaves uncounted jewels shine; I live with forms of beauty everywhere, Peopling the crumbling waste and icy pool With sights and sounds of life most beautiful.

NOT UNDERSTOOD

Tumultuous rushing o'er the outstretched plains; A wildered maze of comets and of suns; The blood of changeless God that ever runs With quick diastole up the immortal veins; A phantom host that moves and works in chains; A monstrous fiction, which, collapsing, stuns The mind to stupor and amaze at once; A tragedy which that man best explains Who rushes blindly on his wild career With trampling hoofs and sound of mailed war, Who will not nurse a life to win a tear, But is extinguished like a falling star;— Such will at times this life appear to me Until I learn to read more perfectly. HOM. IL. v. 403 If thou art tempted by a thought of ill, Crave not too soon for victory, nor deem Thou art a coward if thy safety seem To spring too little from a righteous will; For there is nightmare on thee, nor until Thy soul hath caught the morning's early gleam Seek thou to analyze the monstrous dream By painful introversion; rather fill Thine eye with forms thou knowest to be truth; But see thou cherish higher hope than this,— hope hereafter that thou shall be fit Calm-eyed to face distortion, and to sit Transparent among other forms of youth Who own no impulse save to God and bliss.

THE DAWN

And must I ever wake, gray dawn, to know Thee standing sadly by me like a ghost? I am perplexed with thee that thou shouldst cost This earth another turning! All aglow Thou shouldst have reached me, with a purple show Along far mountain-tops! and I would post Over the breadth of seas, though I were lost In the hot phantom-chase for life, if so Thou earnest ever with this numbing sense Of chilly distance and unlovely light, Waking this gnawing soul anew to fight With its perpetual load: I drive thee hence! I have another mountain-range from whence Bursteth a sun unutterably bright!

GALILEO

"And yet it moves!" Ah, Truth, where wert thou then When all for thee they racked each piteous limb? Wert thou in heaven, and busy with thy hymn When those poor hands convulsed that held thy pen? Art thou a phantom that deceives! men To their undoing? or dost thou watch him Pale, cold, and silent in his dungeon dim? And wilt thou ever speak to him again? "It moves, it moves! Alas, my flesh was weak! That was a hideous dream! I'll cry aloud How the green bulk wheels sunward day by day! Ah me! ah me! perchance my heart was proud That I alone should know that word to speak! And now, sweet Truth, shine upon these, I pray."

SUBSIDY

If thou wouldst live the Truth in very deed, Thou hast thy joy, but thou hast more of pain. Others will live in peace, and thou be fain To bargain with despair, and in thy need To make thy meal upon the scantiest weed. These palaces, for thee they stand in vain; Thine is a ruinous hut, and oft the rain Shall drench thee in the midnight; yea, the speed Of earth outstrip thee, pilgrim, while thy feet Move slowly up the heights. Yet will there come Through the time-rents about thy moving cell, Shot from the Truth's own bow, and flaming sweet, An arrow for despair, and oft the hum Of far-off populous realms where spirits dwell.

THE PROPHET

Speak, Prophet of the Lord! We may not start To find thee with us in thine ancient dress, Haggard and pale from some bleak wilderness, Empty of all save God and thy loud heart, Nor with like rugged message quick to dart Into the hideous fiction mean and base; But yet, O prophet man, we need not less But more of earnest, though it is thy part To deal in other words, if thou wouldst smite The living Mammon, seated, not as then In bestial quiescence grimly dight, But robed as priest, and honoured of good men Yet thrice as much an idol-god as when He stared at his own feet from morn to night.

THE WATCHER

From out a windy cleft there comes a gaze Of eyes unearthly, which go to and fro Upon the people's tumult, for below The nations smite each other: no amaze Troubles their liquid rolling, or affrays Their deep-set contemplation; steadily glow Those ever holier eyeballs, for they grow Liker unto the eyes of one that prays. And if those clasped hands tremble, comes a power As of the might of worlds, and they are holden Blessing above us in the sunrise golden; And they will be uplifted till that hour Of terrible rolling which shall rise and shake This conscious nightmare from us, and we wake.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

I One do I see and twelve; but second there Methinks I know thee, thou beloved one; Not from thy nobler port, for there are none More quiet-featured: some there are who bear Their message on their brows, while others wear A look of large commission, nor will shun The fiery trial, so their work is done; But thou hast parted with thine eyes in prayer— Unearthly are they both; and so thy lips Seem like the porches of the spirit land; For thou hast laid a mighty treasure by Unlocked by Him in Nature, and thine eye Burns with a vision and apocalypse Thy own sweet soul can hardly understand. II A Boanerges too! Upon my heart It lay a heavy hour: features like thine Should glow with other message than the shine Of the earth-burrowing levin, and the start That cleaveth horrid gulfs! Awful and swart A moment stoodest thou, but less divine— Brawny and clad in ruin—till with mine Thy heart made answering signals, and apart Beamed forth thy two rapt eyeballs doubly clear And twice as strong because thou didst thy duty, And, though affianced to immortal Beauty, Hiddest not weakly underneath her veil The pest of Sin and Death which maketh pale: Henceforward be thy spirit doubly dear!

THE LILY OF THE VALLEY

There is not any weed but hath its shower, There is not any pool but hath its star; And black and muddy though the waters are We may not miss the glory of a flower, And winter moons will give them magic power To spin in cylinders of diamond spar; And everything hath beauty near and far, And keepeth close and waiteth on its hour! And I, when I encounter on my road A human soul that looketh black and grim, Shall I more ceremonious be than God? Shall I refuse to watch one hour with him Who once beside our deepest woe did bud A patient watching flower about the brim?

EVIL INFLUENCE

'Tis not the violent hands alone that bring The curse, the ravage, and the downward doom, Although to these full oft the yawning tomb Owes deadly surfeit; but a keener sting, A more immortal agony will cling To the half fashioned sin which would assume Fair Virtue's garb; the eye that sows the gloom With quiet seeds of Death henceforth to spring What time the sun of passion burning fierce Breaks through the kindly cloud of circumstance; The bitter word, and the unkindly glance, The crust and canker coming with the years, Are liker Death than arrows and the lance Which through the living heart at once doth pierce.

SPOKEN OF SEVERAL PHILOSOPHERS

I pray you, all ye men who put your trust In moulds and systems and well-tackled gear, Holding that Nature lives from year to year In one continual round because she must— Set me not down, I pray you, in the dust Of all these centuries, like a pot of beer— A pewter-pot disconsolately clear, Which holds a potful, as is right and just! I will grow clamorous—by the rood, I will, If thus ye use me like a pewter pot! Good friend, thou art a toper and a sot— will not be the lead to hold thy swill, Nor any lead: I will arise and spill Thy silly beverage—spill it piping hot!

NATURE A MORAL POWER

Nature, to him no message dost thou bear Who in thy beauty findeth not the power To gird himself more strongly for the hour Of night and darkness. Oh, what colours rare The woods, the valleys, and the mountains wear To him who knows thy secret, and, in shower, And fog, and ice-cloud, hath a secret bower Where he may rest until the heavens are fair! Not with the rest of slumber, but the trance Of onward movement steady and serene, Where oft, in struggle and in contest keen, His eyes will opened be, and all the dance Of life break on him, and a wide expanse Roll upward through the void, sunny and green.

TO JUNE

Ah, truant, thou art here again, I see! For in a season of such wretched weather I thought that thou hadst left us altogether, Although I could not choose but fancy thee Skulking about the hill-tops, whence the glee Of thy blue laughter peeped at times, or rather Thy bashful awkwardness, as doubtful whether Thou shouldst be seen in such a company Of ugly runaways, unshapely heaps Of ruffian vapour, broken from restraint Of their slim prison in the ocean deeps. But yet I may not chide: fall to thy books— Fall to immediately without complaint— There they are lying, hills and vales and brooks.

SUMMER

Summer, sweet Summer, many-fingered Summer! We hold thee very dear, as well we may: It is the kernel of the year to-day— All hail to thee! thou art a welcome comer! If every insect were a fairy drummer, And I a fifer that could deftly play, We'd give the old Earth such a roundelay That she would cast all thought of labour from her.— Ah! what is this upon my window-pane? Some sulky, drooping cloud comes pouting up, Stamping its glittering feet along the plain!— Well, I will let that idle fancy drop! Oh, how the spouts are bubbling with the rain! And all the earth shines like a silver cup!