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

FOR WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS, THERE WILL YOUR HEART BE ALSO

   The miser lay on his lonely bed;       Life's candle was burning dim. His heart in an iron chest was hid Under heaps of gold and an iron lid;    And whether it were alive or dead       It never troubled him.    Slowly out of his body he crept.       He said, "I am just the same! Only I want my heart in my breast; I will go and fetch it out of my chest!"   Through the dark a darker shadow he leapt,     Saying "Hell is a fabled flame!"   He opened the lid. Oh, Hell's own night!     His ghost-eyes saw no gold!— Empty and swept! Not a gleam was there! In goes his hand, but the chest is bare!   Ghost-fingers, aha! have only might   To close, not to clasp and hold!   But his heart he saw, and he made a clutch     At the fungous puff-ball of sin: Eaten with moths, and fretted with rust, He grasped a handful of rotten dust,   And shrieked, as ghosts may, at the crumbling touch,     But hid it his breast within.   And some there are who see him sit     Under the church, apart, Counting out coins and coins of gold Heap by heap on the dank death-mould:   Alas poor ghost and his sore lack of wit—     They breed in the dust of his heart!   Another miser has now his chest,     And it hoards wealth more and more; Like ferrets his hands go in and out, Burrowing, tossing the gold about—   Nor heed the heart that, gone from his breast,     Is the cold heap's bloodless core.   Now wherein differ old ghosts that sit     Counting ghost-coins all day From the man who clings with spirit prone To whatever can never be his own?   Who will leave the world with not one whit     But a heart all eaten away?

THE ASTHMATIC MAN TO THE SATAN THAT BINDS HIM

Satan, avaunt!   Nay, take thine hour, Thou canst not daunt,   Thou hast no power; Be welcome to thy nest, Though it be in my breast. Burrow amain;   Dig like a mole; Fill every vein   With half-burnt coal; Puff the keen dust about, And all to choke me out. Fill music's ways   With creaking cries, That no loud praise   May climb the skies; And on my labouring chest Lay mountains of unrest. My slumber steep   In dreams of haste, That only sleep,   No rest, I taste— With stiflings, rimes of rote, And fingers on my throat. Satan, thy might   I do defy; Live core of night   I patient lie: A wind comes up the gray Will blow thee clean away. Christ's angel, Death,   All radiant white, With one cold breath   Will scare thee quite, And give my lungs an air As fresh as answered prayer. So, Satan, do   Thy worst with me Until the True   Shall set me free, And end what he began, By making me a man.

SONG-SERMON

Lord, what is man That thou art mindful of him! Though in creation's van, Lord, what is man! He wills less than he can, Lets his ideal scoff him! Lord, what is man That thou art mindful of him!

SHADOWS

All things are shadows of thee, Lord;   The sun himself is but thy shade; My spirit is the shadow of thy word,   A thing that thou hast said. Diamonds are shadows of the sun,   They gleam as after him they hark: My soul some arrows of thy light hath won.   And feebly fights the dark! All knowledges are broken shades,   In gulfs of dark a scattered horde: Together rush the parted glory-grades—   Then, lo, thy garment, Lord! My soul, the shadow, still is light   Because the shadow falls from thee; I turn, dull candle, to the centre bright,   And home flit shadowy. Shine, Lord; shine me thy shadow still;   The brighter I, the more thy shade! My motion be thy lovely moveless will!   My darkness, light delayed!

A WINTER PRAYER

Come through the gloom of clouded skies,   The slow dim rain and fog athwart; Through east winds keen with wrong and lies   Come and lift up my hopeless heart. Come through the sickness and the pain,   The sore unrest that tosses still; Through aching dark that hides the gain   Come and arouse my fainting will. Come through the prate of foolish words,   The science with no God behind; Through all the pangs of untuned chords   Speak wisdom to my shaken mind. Through all the fears that spirits bow   Of what hath been, or may befall, Come down and talk with me, for thou   Canst tell me all about them all. Hear, hear my sad lone heart entreat,   Heart of all joy, below, above! Come near and let me kiss thy feet,   And name the names of those I love!

SONG OF A POOR PILGRIM

Roses all the rosy way!   Roses to the rosier west Where the roses of the day   Cling to night's unrosy breast! Thou who mak'st the roses, why   Give to every leaf a thorn? On thy rosy highway I   Still am by thy roses torn! Pardon! I will not mistake   These good thorns that make me fret! Goads to urge me, stings to wake,   For my freedom they are set. Yea, on one steep mountain-side,   Climbing to a fancied fold, Roses grasped had let me slide   But the thorns did keep their hold. Out of darkness light is born,   Out of weakness make me strong: One glad day will every thorn   Break into a rose of song. Though like sparrow sit thy bird   Lonely on the house-top dark, By the rosy dawning stirred   Up will soar thy praising lark; Roses, roses all his song!   Roses in a gorgeous feast! Roses in a royal throng,   Surging, rosing from the east!

AN EVENING PRAYER

I am a bubble    Upon thy ever-moving, resting sea: Oh, rest me now from tossing, trespass, trouble!    Take me down into thee. Give me thy peace.    My heart is aching with unquietness: Oh, make its inharmonious beating cease!    Thy hand upon it press. My Night! my Day!    Swift night and day betwixt, my world doth reel: Potter, take not thy hand from off the clay    That whirls upon thy wheel. O Heart, I cry    For love and life, pardon and hope and strength! O Father, I am thine; I shall not die,    But I shall sleep at length!

SONG-SERMON

Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs, For as his work thou giv'st the man. From us, not thee, come all our wrongs; Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs: With small-cord whips and scorpion thongs Thou lay'st on every ill thy ban. Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs, For as his work thou giv'st the man.

A DREAM-SONG

The stars are spinning their threads,    And the clouds are the dust that flies, And the suns are weaving them up    For the day when the sleepers arise. The ocean in music rolls,   The gems are turning to eyes, And the trees are gathering souls   For the day when the sleepers arise. The weepers are learning to smile,   And laughter to glean the sighs, And hearts to bury their care and guile   For the day when the sleepers arise. Oh, the dews and the moths and the daisy-red,   The larks and the glimmers and flows! The lilies and sparrows and daily bread,   And the something that nobody knows!

CHRISTMAS, 1880

Great-hearted child, thy very being The Son,   Who know'st the hearts of all us prodigals;— For who is prodigal but he who has gone   Far from the true to heart it with the false?—   Who, who but thou, that, from the animals',     Know'st all the hearts, up to the Father's own,     Can tell what it would be to be alone! Alone! No father!—At the very thought   Thou, the eternal light, wast once aghast; A death in death for thee it almost wrought!   But thou didst haste, about to breathe thy last,   And call'dst out Father ere thy spirit passed,     Exhausted in fulfilling not any vow,     But doing his will who greater is than thou. That we might know him, thou didst come and live;   That we might find him, thou didst come and die; The son-heart, brother, thy son-being give—   We too would love the father perfectly,   And to his bosom go back with the cry,     Father, into thy hands I give the heart     Which left thee but to learn how good thou art! There are but two in all the universe—   The father and his children—not a third; Nor, all the weary time, fell any curse!   Not once dropped from its nest an unfledged bird   But thou wast with it! Never sorrow stirred     But a love-pull it was upon the chain     That draws the children to the father again! O Jesus Christ, babe, man, eternal son,   Take pity! we are poor where thou art rich: Our hearts are small; and yet there is not one   In all thy father's noisy nursery which,   Merry, or mourning in its narrow niche,     Needs not thy father's heart, this very now,     With all his being's being, even as thou!

RONDEL

I do not know thy final will,   It is too good for me to know:   Thou willest that I mercy show, That I take heed and do no ill, That I the needy warm and fill,   Nor stones at any sinner throw; But I know not thy final will—   It is too good for me to know. I know thy love unspeakable—   For love's sake able to send woe!   To find thine own thou lost didst go, And wouldst for men thy blood yet spill!— How should I know thy final will,   Godwise too good for me to know!

THE SPARROW

O Lord, I cannot but believe The birds do sing thy praises then, when they sing to one another, And they are lying seed-sown land when the winter makes them grieve, Their little bosoms breeding songs for the summer to unsmother! If thou hadst finished me, O Lord, Nor left out of me part of that great gift that goes to singing, I sure had known the meaning high of the songster's praising word, Had known upon what thoughts of thee his pearly talk he was stringing! I should have read the wisdom hid In the storm-inspired melody of thy thrush's bosom solemn: I should not then have understood what thy free spirit did To make the lark-soprano mount like to a geyser-column! I think I almost understand Thy owl, his muffled swiftness, moon-round eyes, and intoned hooting; I think I could take up the part of a night-owl in the land, With yellow moon and starry things day-dreamers all confuting. But 'mong thy creatures that do sing Perhaps of all I likest am to the housetop-haunting sparrow, That flies brief, sudden flights upon a dumpy, fluttering wing, And chirps thy praises from a throat that's very short and narrow. But if thy sparrow praise thee well By singing well thy song, nor letting noisy traffic quell it, It may be that, in some remote and leafy heavenly dell, He may with a trumpet-throat awake, and a trumpet-song to swell it!

DECEMBER 23, 1879

I A thousand houses of poesy stand around me everywhere; They fill the earth and they fill my thought, they are in and above the air; But to-night they have shut their doors, they have shut their shining windows fair, And I am left in a desert world, with an aching as if of care. II Cannot I break some little nut and get at the poetry in it? Cannot I break the shining egg of some all but hatched heavenly linnet? Cannot I find some beauty-worm, and its moony cocoon-silk spin it? Cannot I find my all but lost day in the rich content of a minute? III I will sit me down, all aching and tired, in the midst of this never-unclosing Of door or window that makes it look as if truth herself were dozing; I will sit me down and make me a tent, call it poetizing or prosing, Of what may be lying within my reach, things at my poor disposing! IV Now what is nearest?—My conscious self. Here I sit quiet and say: "Lo, I myself am already a house of poetry solemn and gay! But, alas, the windows are shut, all shut: 'tis a cold and foggy day, And I have not now the light to see what is in me the same alway!" V Nay, rather I'll say: "I am a nut in the hard and frozen ground; Above is the damp and frozen air, the cold blue sky all round; And the power of a leafy and branchy tree is in me crushed and bound Till the summer come and set it free from the grave-clothes in which it is wound!" VI But I bethink me of something better!—something better, yea best! "I am lying a voiceless, featherless thing in God's own perfect nest; And the voice and the song are growing within me, slowly lifting my breast; And his wide night-wings are closed about me, for his sun is down in the west!" VII Doors and windows, tents and grave-clothes, winters and eggs and seeds, Ye shall all be opened and broken and torn; ye are but to serve my needs! On the will of the Father all lovely things are strung like a string of beads For his heart to give the obedient child that the will of the father heeds.

SONG-PRAYER: AFTER KING DAVID

I shall be satisfied With the seeing of thy face. When I awake, wide-eyed, I shall be satisfied With what this life did hide, The one supernal grace! I shall be satisfied With the seeing of thy face.

DECEMBER 27, 1879

Every time would have its song   If the heart were right, Seeing Love all tender-strong   Fills the day and night. Weary drop the hands of Prayer   Calling out for peace; Love always and everywhere   Sings and does not cease. Fear, the caitiff, through the night   Silent peers about; Love comes singing with a light   And doth cast him out. Hate and Guile and Wrath and Doubt   Never try to sing; If they did, oh, what a rout   Anguished ears would sting! Pride indeed will sometimes aim   At the finer speech, But the best that he can frame   Is a peacock-screech. Greed will also sometimes try:   Happiness he hunts! But his dwelling is a sty,   And his tones are grunts. Faith will sometimes raise a song   Soaring up to heaven, Then she will be silent long,   And will weep at even. Hope has many a gladsome note   Now and then to pipe; But, alas, he has the throat   Of a bird unripe. Often Joy a stave will start   Which the welkin rends, But it always breaks athwart,   And untimely ends. Grief, who still for death doth long,   Always self-abhorred, Has but one low, troubled song, I am sorry, Lord. But Love singeth in the vault.   Singeth on the stair; Even for Sorrow will not halt,   Singeth everywhere. For the great Love everywhere   Over all doth glow; Draws his birds up trough the air,   Tends his birds below. And with songs ascending sheer   Love-born Love replies, Singing Father in his ear   Where she bleeding lies. Therefore, if my heart were right   I should sing out clear, Sing aloud both day and night   Every month in the year!

SUNDAY,

DECEMBER 28, 1879 A dim, vague shrinking haunts my soul,   My spirit bodeth ill— As some far-off restraining bank Had burst, and waters, many a rank,   Were marching on my hill; As if I had no fire within   For thoughts to sit about; As if I had no flax to spin, No lamp to lure the good things in   And keep the bad things out. The wind, south-west, raves in the pines   That guard my cottage round; The sea-waves fall in stormy lines Below the sandy cliffs and chines,   And swell the roaring sound. The misty air, the bellowing wind   Not often trouble me; The storm that's outside of the mind Doth oftener wake my heart to find   More peace and liberty. Why is not such my fate to-night?   Chance is not lord of things! Man were indeed a hapless wight Things, thoughts occurring as they might—   Chaotic wallowings! The man of moods might merely say   As by the fire he sat, "I am low spirited to-day; I must do something, work or play,   Lest care should kill the cat!" Not such my saw: I was not meant   To be the sport of things! The mood has meaning and intent, And my dull heart is humbly bent   To have the truth it brings. This sense of needed shelter round,   This frequent mental start Show what a poor life mine were found, To what a dead self I were bound,   How feeble were my heart, If I who think did stand alone   Centre to what I thought, A brain within a box of bone, A king on a deserted throne,   A something that was nought! A being without power to be,   Or any power to cease; Whom objects but compelled to see, Whose trouble was a windblown sea,   A windless sea his peace! This very sadness makes me think   How readily I might Be driven to reason's farthest brink, Then over it, and sudden sink   In ghastly waves of night. It makes me know when I am glad   'Tis thy strength makes me strong; But for thy bliss I should be sad, But for thy reason should be mad,   But for thy right be wrong. Around me spreads no empty waste,   No lordless host of things; My restlessness but seeks thy rest; My little good doth seek thy best,   My needs thy ministerings. 'Tis this, this only makes me safe—   I am, immediate, Of one that lives; I am no waif That haggard waters toss and chafe,   But of a royal fate, The born-child of a Power that lives   Because it will and can, A Love whose slightest motion gives, A Freedom that forever strives   To liberate his Man. I live not on the circling air,   Live not by daily food; I live not even by thinkings fair, I hold my very being there   Where God is pondering good. Because God lives I live; because   He thinks, I also think; I am dependent on no laws But on himself, and without pause;   Between us hangs no link. The man that lives he knows not how   May well fear any mouse! I should be trembling this same now If I did think, my Father, thou   Wast nowhere in the house! O Father, lift me on thine arm,   And hold me close to thee; Lift me into thy breathing warm, Then cast me, and I fear no harm,   Into creation's sea!