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,