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

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.
 

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.