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

CONSIDER THE RAVENS

 
Lord, according to thy words,
I have considered thy birds;
And I find their life good,
And better the better understood:
Sowing neither corn nor wheat
They have all that they can eat;
Reaping no more than they sow
They have more than they could stow;
Having neither barn nor store,
Hungry again, they eat more.
 
 
Considering, I see too that they
Have a busy life, and plenty of play;
In the earth they dig their bills deep
And work well though they do not heap;
Then to play in the air they are not loath,
And their nests between are better than both.
But this is when there blow no storms,
When berries are plenty in winter, and worms,
When feathers are rife, with oil enough—
To keep the cold out and send the rain off;
If there come, indeed, a long hard frost
Then it looks as thy birds were lost.
 
 
But I consider further, and find
A hungry bird has a free mind;
He is hungry to-day, not to-morrow,
Steals no comfort, no grief doth borrow;
This moment is his, thy will hath said it,
The next is nothing till thou hast made it.
 
 
Thy bird has pain, but has no fear
Which is the worst of any gear;
When cold and hunger and harm betide him,
He does not take them and stuff inside him;
Content with the day's ill he has got,
He waits just, nor haggles with his lot:
Neither jumbles God's will
With driblets from his own still.
 
 
But next I see, in my endeavour,
Thy birds here do not live for ever;
That cold or hunger, sickness or age
Finishes their earthly stage;
The rooks drop in cold nights,
Leaving all their wrongs and rights;
Birds lie here and birds lie there
With their feathers all astare;
And in thy own sermon, thou
That the sparrow falls dost allow.
 
 
It shall not cause me any alarm,
For neither so comes the bird to harm
Seeing our father, thou hast said,
Is by the sparrow's dying bed;
Therefore it is a blessed place,
And the sparrow in high grace.
 
 
It cometh therefore to this, Lord:
I have considered thy word,
And henceforth will be thy bird.
 

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!