The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 1

III

 
  'Tis late before the sun will rise,
    And early he will go;
  Gray fringes hang from the gray skies,
    And wet the ground below.
  Red fruit has followed golden corn;
    The leaves are few and sere;
  My thoughts are old as soon as born,
    And chill with coming fear.
  The winds lie sick; no softest breath
    Floats through the branches bare;
  A silence as of coming death
    Is growing in the air.
  But what must fade can bear to fade—
    Was born to meet the ill:
  Creep on, old Winter, deathly shade!
    We sorrow, and are still.
 

IV

 
  There is no longer any heaven
    To glorify our clouds;
  The rising vapours downward driven
    Come home in palls and shrouds.
  The sun himself is ill bested
    A heavenly sign to show;
  His radiance, dimmed to glowing red,
    Can hardly further go.
  An earthy damp, a churchyard gloom,
    Pervade the moveless air;
  The year is sinking to its tomb,
    And death is everywhere.
  But while sad thoughts together creep,
    Like bees too cold to sting,
  God's children, in their beds asleep,
    Are dreaming of the spring.
 

SONGS OF THE AUTUMN NIGHTS

I

 
  O night, send up the harvest moon
    To walk about the fields,
  And make of midnight magic noon
    On lonely tarns and wealds.
 
 
  In golden ranks, with golden crowns,
    All in the yellow land,
  Old solemn kings in rustling gowns,
    The shocks moon-charmed stand.
 
 
  Sky-mirror she, afloat in space,
    Beholds our coming morn:
  Her heavenly joy hath such a grace,
    It ripens earthly corn;
 
 
  Like some lone saint with upward eyes,
    Lost in the deeps of prayer:
  The people still their prayers and sighs,
    And gazing ripen there.
 

II

 
  So, like the corn moon-ripened last,
    Would I, weary and gray,
  On golden memories ripen fast,
    And ripening pass away.
 
 
  In an old night so let me die;
    A slow wind out of doors;
  A waning moon low in the sky;
    A vapour on the moors;
 
 
  A fire just dying in the gloom;
    Earth haunted all with dreams;
  A sound of waters in the room;
    A mirror's moony gleams;
 
 
  And near me, in the sinking night,
    More thoughts than move in me—
  Forgiving wrong, and loving right,
    And waiting till I see.
 

III

 
  Across the stubble glooms the wind;
    High sails the lated crow;
  The west with pallid green is lined;
    Fog tracks the river's flow.
 
 
  My heart is cold and sad; I moan,
    Yet care not for my grief;
  The summer fervours all are gone;
    The roses are but leaf.
 
 
  Old age is coming, frosty, hoar;
    The snows of time will fall;
  My jubilance, dream-like, no more
    Returns for any call!
 
 
  O lapsing heart! thy feeble strain
    Sends up the blood so spare,
  That my poor withering autumn brain
    Sees autumn everywhere!
 

IV

 
  Lord of my life! if I am blind,
    I reck not—thou canst see;
  I well may wait my summer mind,
    When I am sure of thee!
 
 
  I made no brave bright suns arise,
    Veiled up no sweet gray eves;
  I hung no rose-lamps, lit no eyes,
    Sent out no windy leaves!
 
 
  I said not "I will cast a charm
    These gracious forms around;"
  My heart with unwilled love grew warm;
    I took but what I found!
 
 
  When cold winds range my winter-night,
    Be thou my summer-door;
  Keep for me all my young delight,
    Till I am old no more.
 

SONGS OF THE WINTER DAYS

I

 
  The sky has turned its heart away,
    The earth its sorrow found;
  The daisies turn from childhood's play,
    And creep into the ground.
 
 
  The earth is black and cold and hard;
    Thin films of dry white ice,
  Across the rugged wheel-tracks barred,
    The children's feet entice.
 
 
  Dark flows the stream, as if it mourned
    The winter in the land;
  With idle icicles adorned,
    That mill-wheel soon will stand.
 
 
  But, friends, to say 'tis cold, and part,
    Is to let in the cold;
  We'll make a summer of the heart,
    And laugh at winter old.
 

II

 
  With vague dead gleam the morning white
    Comes through the window-panes;
  The clouds have fallen all the night,
    Without the noise of rains.
 
 
  As of departing, unseen ghost,
    Footprints go from the door;
  The man himself must long be lost
    Who left those footprints hoar!
 
 
  Yet follow thou; tread down the snow;
    Leave all the road behind;
  Heed not the winds that steely blow,
    Heed not the sky unkind;
 
 
  For though the glittering air grow dark,
    The snow will shine till morn;
  And long ere then one dear home-spark
    Will winter laugh to scorn.
 

III

 
  Oh wildly wild the roaring blast
    Torments the fallen snow!
  The wintry storms are up at last,
    And care not how they go!
 
 
  In foam-like wreaths the water hoar,
    Rapt whistling in the air,
  Gleams through the dismal twilight frore;
    A region in despair,
 
 
  A spectral ocean lies outside,
    Torn by a tempest dark;
  Its ghostly billows, dim descried,
    Leap on my stranded bark.
 
 
  Death-sheeted figures, long and white,
    Rave driving through the spray;
  Or, bosomed in the ghastly night,
    Shriek doom-cries far away.
 

IV

 
  A morning clear, with frosty light
    From sunbeams late and low;
  They shine upon the snow so white,
    And shine back from the snow.
 
 
  Down tusks of ice one drop will go,
    Nor fall: at sunny noon
  'Twill hang a diamond—fade, and grow
    An opal for the moon.
 
 
  And when the bright sad sun is low
    Behind the mountain-dome,
  A twilight wind will come and blow
    Around the children's home,
 
 
  And puff and waft the powdery snow,
    As feet unseen did pass;
  While, waiting in its bed below,
    Green lies the summer grass.
 

SONGS OF THE WINTER NIGHTS

I

 
  Back shining from the pane, the fire
    Seems outside in the snow:
  So love set free from love's desire
    Lights grief of long ago.
 
 
  The dark is thinned with snow-sheen fine,
    The earth bedecked with moon;
  Out on the worlds we surely shine
    More radiant than in June!
 
 
  In the white garden lies a heap
    As brown as deep-dug mould:
  A hundred partridges that keep
    Each other from the cold.
 
 
  My father gives them sheaves of corn,
    For shelter both and food:
  High hope in me was early born,
    My father was so good.
 

II

 
  The frost weaves ferns and sultry palms
    Across my clouded pane;
  Weaves melodies of ancient psalms
    All through my passive brain.
 
 
  Quiet ecstasy fills heart and head:
    My father is in the room;
  The very curtains of my bed
    Are from Love's sheltering loom!
 
 
  The lovely vision melts away;
    I am a child no more;
  Work rises from the floor of play;
    Duty is at the door.
 
 
  But if I face with courage stout
    The labour and the din,
  Thou, Lord, wilt let my mind go out
    My heart with thee stay in.
 

III

 
  Up to my ear my soul doth run—
    Her other door is dark;
  There she can see without the sun,
    And there she sits to mark.
 
 
  I hear the dull unheeding wind
    Mumble o'er heath and wold;
  My fancy leaves my brain behind,
    And floats into the cold.
 
 
  Like a forgotten face that lies
    One of the speechless crowd,
  The earth lies spent, with frozen eyes,
    White-folded in her shroud.
 
 
  O'er leafless woods and cornless farms,
    Dead rivers, fireless thorps,
  I brood, the heart still throbbing warm
    In Nature's wintered corpse.
 

IV

 
  To all the world mine eyes are blind:
    Their drop serene is—night,
  With stores of snow piled up the wind
    An awful airy height.
 
 
  And yet 'tis but a mote in the eye:
    The simple faithful stars
  Beyond are shining, careless high,
    Nor heed our storms and jars.
 
 
  And when o'er storm and jar I climb—
    Beyond life's atmosphere,
  I shall behold the lord of time
    And space—of world and year.
 
 
  Oh vain, far quest!—not thus my heart
    Shall ever find its goal!
  I turn me home—and there thou art,
    My Father, in my soul!
 

SONGS OF THE SPRING DAYS

I

 
  A gentle wind, of western birth
    On some far summer sea,
  Wakes daisies in the wintry earth,
    Wakes hopes in wintry me.
 
 
  The sun is low; the paths are wet,
    And dance with frolic hail;
  The trees—their spring-time is not yet—
    Swing sighing in the gale.
 
 
  Young gleams of sunshine peep and play;
    Clouds shoulder in between;
  I scarce believe one coming day
    The earth will all be green.
 
 
  The north wind blows, and blasts, and raves,
    And flaps his snowy wing:
  Back! toss thy bergs on arctic waves;
    Thou canst not bar our spring.
 

II

 
  Up comes the primrose, wondering;
    The snowdrop droopeth by;
  The holy spirit of the spring
    Is working silently.
 
 
  Soft-breathing breezes woo and wile
    The later children out;
  O'er woods and farms a sunny smile
    Is flickering about.
 
 
  The earth was cold, hard-hearted, dull;
    To death almost she slept:
  Over her, heaven grew beautiful,
    And forth her beauty crept.
 
 
  Showers yet must fall, and waters grow
    Dark-wan with furrowing blast;
  But suns will shine, and soft winds blow,
    Till the year flowers at last.
 

III

 
  The sky is smiling over me,
    Hath smiled away the frost;
  White daisies star the sky-like lea,
    With buds the wood's embossed.
 
 
  Troops of wild flowers gaze at the sky
    Up through the latticed boughs;
  Till comes the green cloud by and by,
    It is not time to house.
 
 
  Yours is the day, sweet bird—sing on;
    The winter is forgot;
  Like an ill dream 'tis over and gone:
    Pain that is past, is not.
 
 
  Joy that was past is yet the same:
    If care the summer brings,
  'Twill only be another name
    For love that broods, not sings.
 

IV

 
  Blow on me, wind, from west and south;
    Sweet summer-spirit, blow!
  Come like a kiss from dear child's mouth,
    Who knows not what I know.
 
 
  The earth's perfection dawneth soon;
    Ours lingereth alway;
  We have a morning, not a noon;
    Spring, but no summer gay.
 
 
  Rose-blotted eve, gold-branded morn
    Crown soon the swift year's life:
  In us a higher hope is born,
    And claims a longer strife.
 
 
  Will heaven be an eternal spring
    With summer at the door?
  Or shall we one day tell its king
    That we desire no more?
 

SONGS OF THE SPRING NIGHTS

I

 
  The flush of green that dyed the day
    Hath vanished in the moon;
  Flower-scents float stronger out, and play
    An unborn, coming tune.
 
 
  One southern eve like this, the dew
    Had cooled and left the ground;
  The moon hung half-way from the blue,
    No disc, but conglobed round;
 
 
  Light-leaved acacias, by the door,
    Bathed in the balmy air,
  Clusters of blossomed moonlight bore,
    And breathed a perfume rare;
 
 
  Great gold-flakes from the starry sky
    Fell flashing on the deep:
  One scent of moist earth floating by,
    Almost it made me weep.
 

II

 
  Those gorgeous stars were not my own,
    They made me alien go!
  The mother o'er her head had thrown
    A veil I did not know!
 
 
  The moon-blanched fields that seaward went,
    The palm-flung, dusky shades,
  Bore flowering grasses, knotted, bent,
    No slender, spear-like blades.
 
 
  I longed to see the starry host
    Afar in fainter blue;
  But plenteous grass I missed the most,
    With daisies glimmering through.
 
 
  The common things were not the same!
    I longed across the foam:
  From dew-damp earth that odour came—
    I knew the world my home.
 

III

 
  The stars are glad in gulfy space—
    Friendly the dark to them!
  From day's deep mine, their hiding-place,
    Night wooeth every gem.
 
 
  A thing for faith 'mid labour's jar,
    When up the day is furled,
  Shines in the sky a light afar,
    Mayhap a home-filled world.
 
 
  Sometimes upon the inner sky
    We catch a doubtful shine:
  A mote or star? A flash in the eye
    Or jewel of God's mine?
 
 
  A star to us, all glimmer and glance,
    May teem with seraphim:
  A fancy to our ignorance
    May be a truth to Him.