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

BALLADS

THE UNSEEN MODEL

Forth to his study the sculptor goes   In a mood of lofty mirth: "Now shall the tongues of my carping foes   Confess what my art is worth! In my brain last night the vision arose,   To-morrow shall see its birth!" He stood like a god; with creating hand   He struck the formless clay: "Psyche, arise," he said, "and stand;   In beauty confront the day. I have sought nor found thee in any land;   I call thee: arise; obey!" The sun was low in the eastern skies   When spoke the confident youth; Sweet Psyche, all day, his hands and eyes   Wiled from the clay uncouth, Nor ceased when the shadows came up like spies   That dog the steps of Truth. He said, "I will do my will in spite   Of the rising dark; for, see, She grows to my hand! The mar-work night   Shall hurry and hide and flee From the glow of my lamp and the making might   That passeth out of me!" In the flickering lamplight the figure swayed,   In the shadows did melt and swim: With tool and thumb he modelled and made,   Nor knew that feature and limb Half-obeying, half-disobeyed,   And mocking eluded him. At the dawning Psyche of his brain   Joyous he wrought all night: The oil went low, and he trimmed in vain,   The lamp would not burn bright; But he still wrought on: through the high roof-pane   He saw the first faint light! The dark retreated; the morning spread;   His creatures their shapes resume; The plaster stares dumb-white and dead;   A faint blue liquid bloom Lies on each marble bosom and head;   To his Psyche clings the gloom. Backward he stept to see the clay:   His visage grew white and sear; No beauty ideal confronted the day,   No Psyche from upper sphere, But a once loved shape that in darkness lay,   Buried a lonesome year! From maidenhood's wilderness fair and wild   A girl to his charm had hied: He had blown out the lamp of the trusting child,   And in the darkness she died; Now from the clay she sadly smiled,   And the sculptor stood staring-eyed. He had summoned Psyche—and Psyche crept   From a half-forgotten tomb; She brought her sad smile, that still she kept,   Her eyes she left in the gloom! High grace had found him, for now he wept,   And love was his endless doom! Night-long he pined, all day did rue;   He haunted her form with sighs: As oft as his clay to a lady grew   The carvers, with dim surmise, Would whisper, "The same shape come to woo,   With its blindly beseeching eyes!"

THE HOMELESS GHOST

Through still, bare streets, and cold moonshine   His homeward way he bent; The clocks gave out the midnight sign   As lost in thought he went Along the rampart's ocean-line, Where, high above the tossing brine,   Seaward his lattice leant. He knew not why he left the throng,   Why there he could not rest, What something pained him in the song   And mocked him in the jest, Or why, the flitting crowd among, A moveless moonbeam lay so long   Athwart one lady's breast! He watched, but saw her speak to none,   Saw no one speak to her; Like one decried, she stood alone,   From the window did not stir; Her hair by a haunting gust was blown, Her eyes in the shadow strangely shown,   She looked a wanderer. He reached his room, he sought a book   His brooding to beguile; But ever he saw her pallid look,   Her face too still to smile. An hour he sat in his fireside nook, The time flowed past like a silent brook,   Not a word he read the while. Vague thoughts absorbed his passive brain   Of love that bleeding lies, Of hoping ever and hoping in vain,   Of a sorrow that never dies— When a sudden spatter of angry rain Smote against every window-pane,   And he heard far sea-birds' cries. He looked from the lattice: the misty moon   Hardly a glimmer gave; The wind was like one that hums a tune,   The first low gathering stave; The ocean lay in a sullen swoon, With a moveless, monotonous, murmured croon   Like the moaning of a slave. Sudden, with masterful, angry blare   It howled from the watery west: The storm was up, he had left his lair!   The night would be no jest! He turned: a lady sat in his chair! Through her loose dim robe her arm came bare,   And it lay across her breast. She sat a white queen on a ruined throne,   A lily bowed with blight; In her eyes the darkness about was blown   By flashes of liquid light; Her skin with very whiteness shone; Back from her forehead loosely thrown   Her hair was dusk as night. Wet, wet it hung, and wept like weeds   Down her pearly shoulders bare; The pale drops glistened like diamond beads   Caught in a silken snare; As the silver-filmy husk to its seeds Her dank robe clings, and but half recedes   Her form so shadowy fair. Doubting she gazed in his wondering face,   Wonder his utterance ties; She searches, like one in forgetful case,   For something within his eyes, For something that love holds ever in chase, For something that is, and has no place,   But away in the thinking lies. Speechless he ran, brought a wrap of wool,   And a fur that with down might vie; Listless, into the gathering pool   She dropped them, and let them lie. He piled the hearth with fagots so full That the flames, as if from the log of Yule,   Up the chimney went roaring high. Then she spoke, and lovely to heart and ear   Was her voice, though broke by pain; Afar it sounded, though sweet and clear,   As if from out of the rain; As if from out of the night-wind drear It came like the voice of one in fear   Lest she should no welcome gain. "I am too far off to feel the cold,   Too cold to feel the fire; It cannot get through the heap of mould   That soaks in the drip from the spire: Cerement of wax 'neath cloth of gold, 'Neath fur and wool in fold on fold,   Freezes in frost so dire." Her voice and her eyes and her cheek so white   Thrilled him through heart and brain; Wonder and pity and love unite   In a passion of bodiless pain; Her beauty possessed him with strange delight: He was out with her in the live wan night,   With her in the blowing rain! Sudden she rose, she kneeled, she flung   Her loveliness at his feet: "I am tired of being blown and swung   In the rain and the snow and the sleet! But better no rest than stillness among Things whose names would defile my tongue!   How I hate the mouldy sheet! "Ah, though a ghost, I'm a lady still!"   The youth recoiled aghast. Her eyes grew wide and pale and chill   With a terror that surpassed. He caught her hand: a freezing thrill Stung to his wrist, but with steadfast will   He held it warm and fast. "What can I do to save thee, dear?"   At the word she sprang upright; On tiptoe she stood, he bent his ear,   She whispered, whispered light. She withdrew; she gazed with an asking fear: Like one that looks on his lady's bier   He stood, with a face ghost-white. "Six times—in vain, oh hapless maid!—   I have humbled myself to sue! This is the last: as the sunset decayed,   Out with the twilight I grew, And about the city flitted and strayed, A wandering, lonely, forsaken shade:   No one saw me but you." He shivered, he shook, he had turned to clay,   Vile fear had gone into his blood; His face was a dismal ashy gray,   Through his heart crept slime and mud; The lady stood in a still dismay, She drooped, she shrank, she withered away   Like a half-blown frozen bud. "Speak once more. Am I frightful then?   I live, though they call it death; I am only cold! Say dear again."   But scarce could he heave a breath; Over a dank and steaming fen He floated astray from the world of men,   A lost, half-conscious wraith. "Ah, 'tis the last time! Save me!" Her cry   Entered his heart, and lay. But he loved the sunshine, the golden sky,   And the ghosts' moonlight is gray!— As feverous visions flit and fly And without a motion elude the eye,   She stood three steps away. But oh, her eyes!—refusal base   Those live-soul-stars had slain! Frozen eyes in an icy face   They had grown. Like a ghost of the brain, Beside the lattice, thought-moved in space, She stood with a doleful despairing grace:   The fire burned! clanged the rain! Faded or fled, she had vanished quite!   The loud wind sank to a sigh; Pale faces without paled the face of night,   Sweeping the window by; Some to the glass pressed a cheek of fright, Some shot a gleam of decaying light   From a flickering, uncertain eye. Whence did it come, from the sky or the deep,   That faint, long-cadenced wail? From the closing door of the down-way steep,   His own bosom, or out of the gale? From the land where dead dreams, or dead maidens sleep? Out of every night to come will creep   That cry his heart to quail! The clouds had broken, the wind was at rest,   The sea would be still ere morn, The moon had gone down behind its breast   Save the tip of one blunt horn: Was that the ghost-angel without a nest— Across the moonset far in the west  That thin white vapour borne? He turned from the lattice: the fire-lit room   With its ghost-forsaken chair Was cold and drear as a rifled tomb,   Shameful and dreamless and bare! Filled it was with his own soul's gloom, With the sense of a traitor's merited doom,   With a lovely ghost's despair! He had driven a lady, and lightly clad,   Out in the stormy cold! Was she a ghost?—Divinely sad   Are the people of Hades old! A wandering ghost? Oh, self-care bad, Caitiff and craven and cowering, which had   Refused her an earthly fold! Ill had she fared, his lovely guest!—   A passion of wild self-blame Tore the heart that failed in the test   With a thousand hooks of shame, Bent his proud head on his heaving breast, Shore the plume from his ancient crest,   Puffed at his ancient name. He sickened with scorn of a fallen will,   With love and remorse he wept; He sank and kissed her footprints chill   And the track by her garment swept; He kneeled by her chair, all ice-cold still, Dropped his head in it, moaned until   For weariness he slept. He slept until the flaming sun   Laughed at the by-gone dark: "A frightful dream!—but the night is done,"   He said, "and I hear the lark!" All day he held out; with the evening gun A booming terror his brain did stun,   And Doubt, the jackal, gan bark. Followed the lion, Conviction, fast,   And the truth no dream he knew! Night after night raved the conscience-blast,   But stilled as the morning grew. When seven slow moons had come and passed His self-reproach aside he cast,   And the truth appeared untrue. A lady fair—old story vile!—   Would make his heart her boast: In the growing glamour of her smile   He forgot the lovely ghost: Forgot her for bitterness wrapt in wile, For the lady was false as a crocodile,   And her heart was a cave of frost. Then the cold white face, with its woe divine,   Came back in the hour of sighs: Not always with comfort to those that pine   The dear true faces arise! He yearned for her, dreamed of her, prayed for a sign; He wept for her pleading voice, and the shine   Of her solitary eyes. "With thy face so still, which I made so sad—   Ah me! which I might have wooed— Thou holdest my heart in a love not glad,   Sorrowful, shame-subdued! Come to me, lady, in pardon clad; Come to my dreams, white Aidead,   For on thee all day I brood!" She came not. He sought her in churchyards old,   In churchyards by the sea; And in many a church, when the midnight tolled   And the moon shone eerily, Down to the crypt he crept, grown bold, Sat all night in the dead men's cold,   And called to her: never came she. Praying forgiveness more and more,   And her love at any cost, Pining and sighing and longing sore   He grew like a creature lost; Thin and spectral his body wore, He faded out at the ghostly door,   And was himself a ghost. But if he found the lady then,   So sorrowfully lost For lack of the love 'mong earthly men   That was ready to brave love's cost, I know not till I drop my pen, Wander away from earthly ken,   And am myself a ghost.

ABU MIDJAN

"If I sit in the dust   For lauding good wine, Ha, ha! it is just:   So sits the vine!" Abu Midjan sang as he sat in chains, For the blood of the grape ran the juice of his veins. The Prophet had said, "O Faithful, drink not!" Abu Midjan drank till his heart was hot; Yea, he sang a song in praise of wine, He called it good names—a joy divine, The giver of might, the opener of eyes, Love's handmaid, the water of Paradise! Therefore Saad his chief spake words of blame, And set him in irons—a fettered flame; But he sings of the wine as he sits in his chains, For the blood of the grape runs the juice of his veins: "I will not think   That the Prophet said Ye shall not drink   Of the flowing red!" "'Tis a drenched brain   Whose after-sting Cries out, Refrain:   'Tis an evil thing! "But I will dare,   With a goodly drought, To drink, nor spare   Till my thirst be out. "I do not laugh   Like a Christian fool But in silence quaff   The liquor cool "At door of tent   'Neath evening star, With daylight spent,   And Uriel afar! "Then, through the sky,   Lo, the emerald hills! My faith swells high,   My bosom thrills: "I see them hearken,   The Houris that wait! Their dark eyes darken   The diamond gate! "I hear the float   Of their chant divine, And my heart like a boat   Sails thither on wine! "Can an evil thing   Make beauty more? Or a sinner bring   To the heavenly door? "The sun-rain fine   Would sink and escape, But is drunk by the vine,   Is stored in the grape: "And the prisoned light   I free again: It flows in might   Through my shining brain "I love and I know;   The truth is mine; I walk in the glow   Of the sun-bred wine. "I will not think   That the Prophet said Ye shall not drink   Of the flowing red! "For his promises, lo,   Sevenfold they shine When the channels o'erflow   With the singing wine! "But I care not, I!—'tis a small annoy To sit in chains for a heavenly joy!"   Away went the song on the light wind borne; His head sank down, and a ripple of scorn Shook the hair that flowed from his curling lip As he eyed his brown limbs in the iron's grip.   Sudden his forehead he lifted high: A faint sound strayed like a moth-wing by! Like beacons his eyes burst blazing forth: A dust-cloud he spied in the distant north! A noise and a smoke on the plain afar? 'Tis the cloud and the clang of the Moslem war! He leapt aloft like a tiger snared; The wine in his veins through his visage flared; He tore at his fetters in bootless ire, He called the Prophet, he named his sire; From his lips, with wild shout, the Techir burst; He danced in his irons; the Giaours he cursed; And his eyes they flamed like a beacon dun, Or like wine in the crystal twixt eye and sun.   The lady of Saad heard him shout, Heard his fetters ring on the stones about The heart of a warrior she understood, And the rage of the thwarted battle-mood: Her name, with the cry of an angry prayer, He called but once, and the lady was there.   "The Giaour!" he panted, "the Godless brute! And me like a camel tied foot to foot! Let me go, and I swear by Allah's fear At sunset I don again this gear, Or lie in a heaven of starry eyes, Kissed by moon-maidens of Paradise! O lady, grant me the death of the just! Hark to the hurtle! see the dust!"   With ready fingers the noble dame Unlocked her husband's iron blame; Brought his second horse, his Abdon, out, And his second hauberk, light and stout; Harnessed the warrior, and hight him go An angel of vengeance upon the foe.   With clank of steel and thud of hoof Away he galloped; she climbed the roof.   She sees the cloud and the flashes that leap From the scythe-shaped swords inside it that sweep Down with back-stroke the disordered swath: Thither he speeds, a bolt of wrath! Straight as an arrow she sees him go, Abu Midjan, the singer, upon the foe! Like an eagle he vanishes in the cloud, And the thunder of battle bursts more loud, Mingled of crashes and blows and falls, Of the whish that severs the throat that calls, Of neighing and shouting and groaning grim: Abu Midjan, she sees no more of him! Northward the battle drifts afar On the flowing tide of the holy war.   Lonely across the desert sand, From his wrist by its thong hung his clotted brand, Red in the sunset's level flame Back to his bonds Abu Midjan came.   "Lady, I swear your Saad's horse— The Prophet himself might have rode a worse! Like the knots of a serpent the play of his flesh As he tore to the quarry in Allah's mesh! I forgot him, and mowed at the traitor weeds, Which fell before me like rushes and reeds, Or like the tall poppies that sudden drop low Their heads to an urchin's unstrung bow! Fled the Giaour; the faithful flew after to kill; I turned to surrender: beneath me still Was Abdon unjaded, fresh in force, Faithful and fearless—a heavenly horse! Give him water, lady, and barley to eat; Then haste thee and fetter the wine-bibber's feet."   To the terrace he went, and she to the stall; She tended the horse like guest in hall, Then to the warrior unhasting returned. The fire of the fight in his eyes yet burned, But he sat in a silence that might betoken One ashamed that his heart had spoken— Though where was the word to breed remorse? He had lauded only his chief's brave horse! Not a word she spoke, but his fetters locked; He watched with a smile that himself bemocked; She left him seated in caitiff-plight, Like one that had feared and fled the fight.   But what singer ever sat lonely long Ere the hidden fountain burst in song! The battle wine foamed in the warrior's veins, And he sang sword-tempest who sat in chains.   "Oh, the wine Of the vine   Is a feeble thing! In the rattle Of battle   The true grapes spring! "When on whir Of Tecbir   Allah's wrath flies, And the power Of the Giaour   A blasted leaf lies! "When on force Of the horse   The arm flung abroad Is sweeping, And reaping   The harvest of God! "Ha! they drop From the top   To the sear heap below! Ha! deeper, Down steeper,  The infidels go! "Azrael Sheer to hell  Shoots the foul shoals! There Monker And Nakir   Torture their souls! "But when drop On their crop   The scimitars red, And under War's thunder   The faithful lie dead, "Oh, bright Is the light   On hero slow breaking! Rapturous faces Bent for embraces   Watch for his waking! "And he hears In his ears   The voice of Life's river, Like a song Of the strong,   Jubilant ever! "Oh, the wine Of the vine   May lead to the gates, But the rattle Of battle   Wakes the angel who waits! "To the lord Of the sword   Open it must! The drinker, The thinker   Sits in the dust! "He dreams Of the gleams   Of their garments of white; He misses Their kisses,   The maidens of light! "They long For the strong   Who has burst through alarms— Up, by the labour Of stirrup and sabre,   Up to their arms! "Oh, the wine of the grape is a feeble ghost! The wine of the fight is the joy of a host!"   When Saad came home from the far pursuit, An hour he sat, and an hour was mute. Then he opened his mouth: "Ah, wife, the fight Had been lost full sure, but an arm of might Sudden rose up on the crest of the battle, Flashed blue lightnings, thundered steel rattle, Took up the fighting, and drove it on— Enoch sure, or the good Saint John! Wherever he leaped, like a lion he, The battle was thickest, or soon to be! Wherever he sprang with his lion roar, In a minute the battle was there no more! With a headlong fear, the sinners fled, And we swept them down the steep of the dead: Before us, not from us, did they flee, They ceased in the depths of a new Red Sea! But him who saved us we saw no more; He went as he came, by a secret door! And strangest of all—nor think I err If a miracle I for truth aver— I was close to him thrice—the holy Force Wore my silver-ringed hauberk, rode Abdon my horse!"   The lady rose up, withholding her word, And led to the terrace her wondering lord, Where, song-soothed, and weary with battle strain, Abu Midjan sat counting the links of his chain: "The battle was raging, he raging worse; I freed him, harnessed him, gave him thy horse."   "Abu Midjan! the singer of love and of wine! The arm of the battle, it also was thine? Rise up, shake the irons from off thy feet: For the lord of the fight are fetters meet? If thou wilt, then drink till thou be hoar: Allah shall judge thee; I judge no more!"   Abu Midjan arose; he flung aside The clanking fetters, and thus he cried: "If thou give me to God and his decrees, Nor purge my sin with the shame of these, Wrath against me I dare not store: In the name of Allah, I drink no more!"