George MacDonald

“ OH THOU OF LITTLE FAITH! Sad-hearted, be at peace: the snowdrop lies
Buried in sepulchre of ghastly snow;
But spring is floating up the southern skies,
And darkling the pale snowdrop waits below.
Let me persuade: in dull December's day
We scarce believe there is a month of June;
But up the stairs of April and of May
The hot sun climbeth to the summer's noon.
Yet hear me: I love God, and half I rest.
O better! God loves thee, so all rest thou.
He is our summer, our dim-visioned Best;—
And in his heart thy prayer is resting now. ”

“ Thou seëst love in order shine:—
His health hath made thee whole!
Thou, sharing in the awful doom,
Didst help thy Lord to die;
Then, weeping o'er his empty tomb,
Didst hear him Mary cry.
He stands in haste; he cannot stop;
Home to his God he fares:
"Go tell my brothers I go up
To my Father, mine and theirs."
Run, Mary! lift thy heavenly voice;
Cry, cry, and heed not how;
Make all the new-risen world rejoice—
Its first apostle thou!
What if old tales of thee have lied,
Or truth have told, thou art
All-safe with him, whate'er betide—
Dwell'st with him in God's heart! ”

“ Those waves that bend in golden spray,
As if thy foot they bore:
I think I know thee, Lord, to-day,
Shall know thee evermore.
I know thy father thine and mine:
Thou the great fact hast bared:
Master, the mighty words are thine—
Such I had never dared!
Lord, thou hast much to make me yet—
Thy father's infant still:
Thy mind, Son, in my bosom set,
That I may grow thy will.
My soul with truth clothe all about,
And I shall question free:
The man that feareth, Lord, to doubt,
In that fear doubteth thee. ”

“ And the knees are bowed in prayer
To the Stronger than despair—
Then the ever-lifted cry,
Give us light, or we shall die,
Cometh to the Father's ears,
And he hearkens, and he hears:—
As some slow sun would glimmer forth
From sunless winter of the north,
We, hardly trusting hopeful eyes,
Discern and doubt the opening skies.
From a misty gray that lies on
Our dim future's far horizon,
It grows a fresh aurora, sent
Up the spirit's firmament,
Telling, through the vapours dun,
Of the coming, coming sun!
Tis Truth awaking in the soul!
His Righteousness to make us whole! ”

“ These hands, that now are at home in thine,
Shall clasp thee again, if thou still art mine;
And thou shall be mine, my spirit's bride,
In the ceaseless flow of eternity's tide,
If the truest love that thy heart can know
Meet the truest love that from mine can flow.
Pray God, beloved, for thee and me,
That our souls may be wedded eternally.
[He closes the book, and is silent for some moments.]
Ah me, O Poet! did thy love last out
The common life together every hour?
The slumber side by side with wondrousness
Each night after a day of fog and rain? ”

“ A something different from all this earth!
It matters little; I care not—only know
That God will keep the living thing he made.
How mighty must he be to have the right
Of swaying this great power I feel I am—
Moulding and forming it, as pleaseth him!
O God, I come to thee! thou art my life;
O God, thou art my home; I come to thee.
Can this be death? Lo! I am lifted up
Large-eyed into the night. Nothing I see
But that which is, the living awful Truth—
All forms of which are but the sparks flung out
From the luminous ocean clothing round the sun,
Himself all dark. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Only pay our court to thee,
Child of all Eternity!
We are old who once were young,
And we grow more old;
Songs we are that have been sung,
Tales that have been told;
Yellow leaves, wind-blown to thee,
Childhood of Eternity!
If we come too sudden near,
Lo, Earth's infant cries,
For our faces wan and drear
Have such withered eyes!
Thou, Heaven's child, turn'st not away
From the wrinkled ones who pray!
Smile upon us with thy mouth
And thine eyes of grace;
On our cold north breathe thy south.
Thaw the frozen face:
Childhood all from thee doth flow—
Melt to song our age's snow. ”

“ For all that thou hast made me—most of all,
That thou didst make me wonder and seek thee.
I thank thee for my wife: to thee I trust her;
Forget her not, my God. If thou save her,
I shall be able then to thank thee so
As will content thee—with full-flowing song,
The very bubbles on whose dancing waves
Are daring thoughts flung faithful at thy feet.
My heart sinks in me.—I grow faint. Oh! whence
This wind of love that fans me out of life?
One stoops to kiss me!—Ah, my lily child!
God hath not flung thee over his garden-wall. ”

“ And wait, while even prayer is mute,
For what thou judgest meet.
XXVII. My safety lies not, any hour,
In what I generate,
But in the living, healing power
Of that which doth create.
If he is God to the incomplete,
Fulfilling lack and need,
Then I may cast before his feet
A half-word or half-deed.
I bring, Lord, to thy altar-stair,
To thee, love-glorious,
My very lack of will and prayer,
And cry—Thou seest me thus!
From some old well of life they flow!
The words my being fill!—
"Of me that man the truth shall know
Who wills the Father's will." ”

“ My maiden! for true wife is always maiden
To the true husband: thou art mine for ever.
Lilia.
What gentle hopes keep passing to and fro!
Thou shadowest me with thine own rest, my God;
A cloud from thee stoops down and covers me.
[She falls asleep on her knees]
SCENE III.—JULIAN on the summit of a mountain-peak. The stars are brilliant around a crescent moon, hanging half-way between the mountain and the zenith. Below lies a sea of vapour. Beyond rises a loftier pinnacle, across which is stretched a bar of cloud. LILY lies on the cloud, looking earnestly into the mist below. ”

“ God speaks to men.
My soul leans toward him; stretches forth its arms,
And waits expectant. Speak to me, my God;
And let me know the living Father cares
For me, even me; for this one of his children.—
Hast thou no word for me? I am thy thought.
God, let thy mighty heart beat into mine,
And let mine answer as a pulse to thine.
See, I am low; yea, very low; but thou
Art high, and thou canst lift me up to thee.
I am a child, a fool before thee, God;
But thou hast made my weakness as my strength.
I am an emptiness for thee to fill;
My soul, a cavern for thy sea. ”

“ Good men speak lies against thine own—
Tongue quick, and hearing slow;
They will not let thee walk alone,
And think to serve thee so:
If they the children's freedom saw
In thee, the children's king,
They would be still with holy awe,
Or only speak to sing.
Some neither lie nor starve nor fight,
Nor yet the poor deny;
But in their hearts all is not right,—
They often sit and sigh.
We need thee every day and hour,
In sunshine and in snow:
Child-king, we pray with all our power—
Be born, and save us so.
We are but men and women, Lord;
Thou art a gracious child! ”

“ Glorious in stars, and winds, and flowers, and waves,
Not seldom shuts the door and dims the pane,
That, isled in calm, his still small voice may sound
The clearer, by the hearth, in the inner room—
Sound on until the soul, fulfilled of hope,
Look undismayed on that which cannot kill;
And saying in the dark, I will the light,
Glow in the gloom the present will of God:
Then melt the shadows of her shaken house.
He, when his lamp shot up a spiring flame,
Would thus break forth and climb the heaven of prayer:
"Do with us what thou wilt, all-glorious heart! ”

“ For the truth he hath witnessed and striven,
And let the world go crowing,
And Mammon's church-bell go ring,
And the Nile blood-red go flowing!
Man who hated the sword
Yet wielded the sword and axe—
Farewell, O arm of the Lord,
The Lord's own harvest mowing—
With a wind in the smoking flax
Where our foul rivers are flowing!
In war thou didst cherish peace,
Thou slewest for love of life:
Hail, hail thy stormy release
Go home and await thy sowing,
The patient flower of thy strife,
Thy bread on the Nile cast flowing.
Not thy earth to our earth alone,
Thy spirit is left with us! ”

“ That those proud men their evil mood
May see, and so repent;
And that the hidden faith in her
May burst in soaring flame:
With childhood deeper, holier,
Is birthright not the same?
Ill names, of proud religion born—
She'll wear the worst that comes;
Will clothe her, patient, in their scorn,
To share the healing crumbs!
"Truth, Lord; and yet the puppies small
Under the table eat
The crumbs the little ones let fall—
That is not thought unmeet."
The prayer rebuff could not amate
Was not like water spilt:
"O woman, but thy faith is great!
Be it even as thou wilt." ”

“ CHRISTMAS PRAYER. Cold my heart, and poor, and low,
Like thy stable in the rock;
Do not let it orphan go,
It is of thy parent stock!
Come thou in, and it will grow
High and wide, a fane divine;
Like the ruby it will glow,
Like the diamond shine!
SONG OF THE INNOCENTS. Merry, merry we well may be,
For Jesus Christ is come down to see:
Long before, at the top of the stair,
He set our angels a waiting there,
Waiting hither and thither to fly,
Tending the children of the sky,
Lest they dash little feet against big stones,
And tumble down and break little bones ”

“ Thou watchest for the hour
To lift the forward-beaming eye,
To wake the slumbering power!
Thy hand will wipe the stains of time
From off the withered face;
Upraise thy bowed old men, in prime
Of youthful manhood's grace!
Like summer days from winter's tomb,
Shall rise thy women fair;
Gray Death, a shadow, not a doom,
Lo, is not anywhere!
All ills of life shall melt away
As melts a cureless woe,
When, by the dawning of the day
Surprised, the dream must go.
I think thou, Lord, wilt heal me too,
Whate'er the needful cure;
The great best only thou wilt do,
And hoping I endure. ”