To bend again in grateful awe--_The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes

For will is power at length--

In homage to the living Law

Who gives her back her strength.

Uplifter of the down-bent head!

Unbinder of the bound!

Who seest all the burdened

Who only see the ground!

Although they see thee not, nor cry,

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.

VII.

_THE WOMAN WHO CAME BEHIND HIM IN THE CROWD_.

Near him she stole, rank after rank;

She feared approach too loud;

She touched his garment's hem, and shrank

Back in the sheltering crowd.

A shame-faced gladness thrills her frame:

Her twelve years' fainting prayer

Is heard at last! she is the same

As other women there!

She hears his voice. He looks about.

Ah! is it kind or good

To drag her secret sorrow out

Before that multitude?

The eyes of men she dares not meet--

On her they straight must fall!--

Forward she sped, and at his feet

Fell down, and told him all.

To the one refuge she hath flown,

The Godhead's burning flame!

Of all earth's women she alone

Hears there the tenderest name:

"Daughter," he said, "be of good cheer;

Thy faith hath made thee whole:"

With plenteous love, not healing mere,

He comforteth her soul.

VIII.

_THE WIDOW WITH THE TWO MITES_.

Here _much_ and _little_ shift and change,

With scale of need and time;

There _more_ and _less_ have meanings strange,

Which the world cannot rime.

Sickness may be more hale than health,

And service kingdom high;

Yea, poverty be bounty's wealth,

To give like God thereby.

Bring forth your riches; let them go,

Nor mourn the lost control;

For if ye hoard them, surely so

Their rust will reach your soul.

Cast in your coins, for God delights

When from wide hands they fall;

But here is one who brings two mites,

And thus gives more than all.

I think she did not hear the praise--

Went home content with need;

Walked in her old poor generous ways,

Nor knew her heavenly meed.

IX.

_THE WOMEN WHO MINISTERED UNTO HIM_.

Enough he labours for his hire;

Yea, nought can pay his pain;

But powers that wear and waste and tire,

Need help to toil again.

They give him freely all they can,

They give him clothes and food;

In this rejoicing, that the man

Is not ashamed they should.

High love takes form in lowly thing;

He knows the offering such;

To them 'tis little that they bring,

To him 'tis very much.

_PILATE'S WIFE_.

Why came in dreams the low-born man

Between thee and thy rest?

In vain thy whispered message ran,

Though justice was its quest!

Did some young ignorant angel dare--

Not knowing what must be,

Or blind with agony of care--

To fly for help to thee?

I know not. Rather I believe,

Thou, nobler than thy spouse,

His rumoured grandeur didst receive,

And sit with pondering brows,

Until thy maidens' gathered tale

With possible marvel teems:

Thou sleepest, and the prisoner pale

Returneth in thy dreams.

Well mightst thou suffer things not few

For his sake all the night!

In pale eclipse he suffers, who

Is of the world the light.

Precious it were to know thy dream

Of such a one as he!

Perhaps of him we, waking, deem

As poor a verity.

XI.

_THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA_.

In the hot sun, for water cool

She walked in listless mood:

When back she ran, her pitcher full

Forgot behind her stood.

Like one who followed straying sheep,

A weary man she saw,

Who sat upon the well so deep,

And nothing had to draw.

"Give me to drink," he said. Her hand

Was ready with reply;

From out the old well of the land

She drew him plenteously.

He spake as never man before;

She stands with open ears;

He spake of holy days in store,

Laid bare the vanished years.

She cannot still her throbbing heart,

She hurries to the town,

And cries aloud in street and mart,

"The Lord is here: come down."

Her life before was strange and sad,

A very dreary sound:

Ah, let it go--or good or bad:

She has the Master found!

XII.

_MARY MAGDALENE_.

With wandering eyes and aimless zeal,

She hither, thither, goes;

Her speech, her motions, all reveal

A mind without repose.

She climbs the hills, she haunts the sea,

By madness tortured, driven;

One hour's forgetfulness would be

A gift from very heaven!

She slumbers into new distress;

The night is worse than day:

Exulting in her helplessness,

Hell's dogs yet louder bay.

The demons blast her to and fro;

She has no quiet place,

Enough a woman still, to know

A haunting dim disgrace.

A human touch! a pang of death!

And in a low delight

Thou liest, waiting for new breath.

For morning out of night.

Thou risest up: the earth is fair,

The wind is cool; thou art free!

Is it a dream of hell's despair

Dissolves in ecstasy?

That man did touch thee! Eyes divine

Make sunrise in thy soul;

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!

XIII.

_THE WOMAN IN THE TEMPLE_.

A still dark joy! A sudden face!

Cold daylight, footsteps, cries!

The temple's naked, shining space,

Aglare with judging eyes!

All in abandoned guilty hair,

With terror-pallid lips,

To vulgar scorn her honour bare,

To lewd remarks and quips,

Her eyes she fixes on the ground

Her shrinking soul to hide,

Lest, at uncurtained windows found,

Its shame be clear descried.

All idle hang her listless hands,

They tingle with her shame;

She sees not who beside her stands,

She is so bowed with blame.

He stoops, he writes upon the ground,

Regards nor priests nor wife;

An awful silence spreads around,

And wakes an inward strife.

Then comes a voice that speaks for thee,

Pale woman, sore aghast:

"Let him who from this sin is free

At her the first stone cast!"

Ah then her heart grew slowly sad!

Her eyes bewildered rose;

She saw the one true friend she had,

Who loves her though he knows.

He stoops. In every charnel breast

Dead conscience rises slow:

They, dumb before that awful guest,

Turn, one by one, and go.

Up in her deathlike, ashy face

Rises the living red;

No greater wonder sure had place

When Lazarus left the dead!

She is alone with him whose fear

Made silence all around;

False pride, false shame, they come not near,

She has her saviour found!

Jesus hath spoken on her side,

Those cruel men withstood!

From him her shame she will not hide!

For him she _will_ be good!

He rose; he saw the temple bare;

They two are left alone!

He said unto her, "Woman, where

Are thine accusers gone?"

"Hath none condemned thee?" "Master, no,"

She answers, trembling sore.

"Neither do I condemn thee. Go,

And sin not any more."

She turned and went.--To hope and grieve?

Be what she had not been?

We are not told; but I believe

His kindness made her clean.

Our sins to thee us captive hale--

Ambitions, hatreds dire;

Cares, fears, and selfish loves that fail,

And sink us in the mire:

Our captive-cries with pardon meet;

Our passion cleanse with pain;

Lord, thou didst make these miry feet--

Oh, wash them clean again!

XIV.

_MARTHA_.

With joyful pride her heart is high:

Her humble house doth hold

The man her nation's prophecy

Long ages hath foretold!

Poor, is he? Yes, and lowly born:

Her woman-soul is proud

To know and hail the coming morn

Before the eyeless crowd.

At her poor table will he eat?

He shall be served there

With honour and devotion meet

For any king that were!

'Tis all she can; she does her part,

Profuse in sacrifice;

Nor dreams that in her unknown heart

A better offering lies.

But many crosses she must bear;

Her plans are turned and bent;

Do what she can, things will not wear

The form of her intent.

With idle hands and drooping lid,

See Mary sit at rest!

Shameful it was her sister did

No service for their guest!

Dear Martha, one day Mary's lot

Must rule thy hands and eyes;

Thou, all thy household cares forgot,

Must sit as idly wise!

But once more first she set her word

To bar her master's ways,

Crying, "By this he stinketh, Lord,

He hath been dead four days!"

Her housewife-soul her brother dear

Would fetter where he lies!

Ah, did her buried best then hear,

And with the dead man rise?

XV.

_MARY_.

She sitteth at the Master's feet

In motionless employ;

Her ears, her heart, her soul complete

Drinks in the tide of joy.

Ah! who but she the glory knows

Of life, pure, high, intense,

In whose eternal silence blows

The wind beyond the sense!

In her still ear, God's perfect grace

Incarnate is in voice;

Her thoughts, the people of the place,

Receive it, and rejoice.

Her eyes, with heavenly reason bright,

Are on the ground cast low;

His words of spirit, life, and light--

_They_ set them shining so.

But see! a face is at the door

Whose eyes are not at rest;

A voice breaks on divinest lore

With petulant request.

"Master," it said, "dost thou not care

She lets me serve alone?

Tell her to come and take her share."

But Mary's eyes shine on.

She lifts them with a questioning glance,

Calmly to him who heard;

The merest sign, she'll rise at once,

Nor wait the uttered word.

His "Martha, Martha!" with it bore

A sense of coming _nay_;

He told her that her trouble sore

Was needless any day.

And he would not have Mary chid

For want of needless care;

The needful thing was what she did,

At his feet sitting there.

Sure, joy awoke in her dear heart

Doing the thing it would,

When he, the holy, took her part,

And called her choice the good!

Oh needful thing, Oh Mary's choice,

Go not from us away!

Oh Jesus, with the living voice,

Talk to us every day!

II.

Not now the living words are poured

Into one listening ear;

For many guests are at the board,

And many speak and hear.

With sacred foot, refrained and slow,

With daring, trembling tread,

She comes, in worship bending low

Behind the godlike head.

The costly chrism, in snowy stone,

A gracious odour sends;

Her little hoard, by sparing grown,

In one full act she spends.

She breaks the box, the honoured thing!

See how its riches pour!

Her priestly hands anoint him king

Whom peasant Mary bore.

* * * * *

Not so does John the tale repeat:

He saw, for he was there,

Mary anoint the Master's feet,

And wipe them with her hair.

Perhaps she did his head anoint,

And then his feet as well;

And John this one forgotten point

Loved best of all to tell.

'Twas Judas called the splendour waste,

'Twas Jesus said--Not so;

Said that her love his burial graced:

"Ye have the poor; I go."

Her hands unwares outsped his fate,

The truth-king's felon-doom;

The other women were too late,

For he had left the tomb.

XVI.

_THE WOMAN THAT WAS A SINNER_.

His face, his words, her heart awoke;

Awoke her slumbering truth;

She judged him well; her bonds she broke,

And fled to him for ruth.

With tears she washed his weary feet;

She wiped them with her hair;

Her kisses--call them not unmeet,

When they were welcome _there_.

What saint a richer crown could throw

At his love-royal feet!

Her tears, her lips, her hair, down go,

His reign begun to greet.

His holy manhood's perfect worth

Owns her a woman still;

It is impossible henceforth

For her to stoop to ill.

Her to herself his words restore,

The radiance to the day;

A horror to herself no more,

Not yet a cast-away!

Her hands and kisses, ointment, tears,

Her gathered wiping hair,

Her love, her shame, her hopes, her fears,

Mingle in worship rare.

Thou, Mary, too, thy hair didst spread

To wipe the anointed feet;

Nor didst thou only bless his head

With precious spikenard sweet.

But none say thou thy tears didst pour

To wash his parched feet first;

Of tears thou couldst not have such store

As from this woman burst!

If not in love she first be read,

Her queen of sorrow greet;

Mary, do thou anoint his head,

And let her crown his feet.

Simon, her kisses will not soil;

Her tears are pure as rain;

The hair for him she did uncoil

Had been baptized in pain.

Lo, God hath pardoned her so much,

Love all her being stirs!

His love to his poor child is such

That it hath wakened hers!

But oh, rejoice, ye sisters pure,

Who scarce can know her case--

There is no sin but has its cure,

Its all-consuming grace!

He did not leave her soul in hell,

'Mong shards the silver dove;

But raised her pure that she might tell

Her sisters how to love!

She gave him all your best love can!

Despised, rejected, sad--

Sure, never yet had mighty man

Such homage as he had!

Jesus, by whose forgiveness sweet,

Her love grew so intense,

Earth's sinners all come round thy feet:

Lord, make no difference!

A BOOK OF SONNETS.

_THE BURNT-OFFERING_.

Thrice-happy he whose heart, each new-born night,

When old-worn day hath vanished o'er earth's brim,

And he hath laid him down in chamber dim,

Straightway begins to tremble and grow bright,

And loose faint flashes toward the vaulted height

Of the great peace that overshadoweth him:

Keen lambent flames of hope awake and swim

Throughout his soul, touching each point with light!

The great earth under him an altar is,

Upon whose top a sacrifice he lies,

Burning in love's response up to the skies

Whose fire descended first and kindled his:

When slow the flickering flames at length expire,

Sleep's ashes only hide a glowing fire.

_THE UNSEEN FACE_.

"I do beseech thee, God, show me thy face."

"Come up to me in Sinai on the morn!

Thou shall behold as much as may be borne."

And on a rock stood Moses, lone in space.

From Sinai's top, the vaporous, thunderous place,

God passed in cloud, an earthy garment worn

To hide, and thus reveal. In love, not scorn,

He put him in a clift of the rock's base,

Covered him with his hand, his eyes to screen--

Passed--lifted it: his back alone appears!

Ah, Moses, had he turned, and hadst thou seen

The pale face crowned with thorns, baptized with tears,

The eyes of the true man, by men belied,

Thou hadst beheld God's face, and straightway died!

_CONCERNING JESUS_.

If thou hadst been a sculptor, what a race

Of forms divine had thenceforth filled the land!

Methinks I see thee, glorious workman, stand,

Striking a marble window through blind space--

Thy face's reflex on the coming face,

As dawns the stone to statue 'neath thy hand--

Body obedient to its soul's command,

Which is thy thought, informing it with grace!

So had it been. But God, who quickeneth clay,

Nor turneth it to marble--maketh eyes,

Not shadowy hollows, where no sunbeams play--

Would mould his loftiest thought in human guise:

Thou didst appear, walking unknown abroad,

God's living sculpture, all-informed of God.

II.

If one should say, "Lo, there thy statue! take

Possession, sculptor; now inherit it;

Go forth upon the earth in likeness fit;

As with a trumpet-cry at morning, wake

The sleeping nations; with light's terror, shake

The slumber from their hearts, that, where they sit,

They leap straight up, aghast, as at a pit

Gaping beneath;" I hear him answer make:

"Alas for me, I cannot nor would dare

Inform what I revered as I did trace!

Who would be fool that he like fool might fare,

With feeble spirit mocking the enorm

Strength on his forehead!" Thou, God's thought thy form,

Didst live the large significance of thy face.

III.

Men have I seen, and seen with wonderment,

Noble in form, "lift upward and divine,"

In whom I yet must search, as in a mine,

After that soul of theirs, by which they went

Alive upon the earth. And I have bent

Regard on many a woman, who gave sign

God willed her beautiful, when he drew the line

That shaped each float and fold of beauty's tent:

Her soul, alas, chambered in pigmy space,

Left the fair visage pitiful--inane--

Poor signal only of a coming face

When from the penetrale she filled the fane!--

Possessed of thee was every form of thine,

Thy very hair replete with the divine.

IV.

If thou hadst built a temple, how my eye

Had hungering fed thereon, from low-browed crypt

Up to the soaring pinnacles that, tipt

With stars, gave signal when the sun drew nigh!

Dark caverns in and under; vivid sky

Its home and aim! Say, from the glory slipt,

And down into the shadows dropt and dipt,

Or reared from darkness up so holy-high?--

Thou build'st the temple of thy holy ghost

From hid foundation to high-hidden fate--

Foot in the grave, head at the heavenly gate,

From grave and sky filled with a fighting host!

Man is thy temple; man thy work elect;

His glooms and glory thine, great architect!

If thou hadst been a painter, what fresh looks,

What outbursts of pent glories, what new grace

Had shone upon us from the great world's face!

How had we read, as in eternal books,

The love of God in loneliest shiest nooks!

A lily, in merest lines thy hand did trace,

Had plainly been God's child of lower race!

And oh how strong the hills, songful the brooks!

To thee all nature's meanings lie light-bare,

Because thy heart is nature's inner side;

Clear as, to us, earth on the dawn's gold tide,

Her notion vast up in thy soul did rise;

Thine is the world, thine all its splendours rare,

Thou Man ideal, with the unsleeping eyes!

VI.

But I have seen pictures the work of man,

In which at first appeared but chaos wild:

So high the art transcended, they beguiled

The eye as formless, and without a plan.

Not soon, the spirit, brooding o'er, began

To see a purpose rise, like mountain isled,

When God said, Let the Dry appear! and, piled

Above the waves, it rose in twilight wan.

So might thy pictures then have been too strange

For us to pierce beyond their outmost look;

A vapour and a darkness; a sealed book;

An atmosphere too high for wings to range;

And so we could but, gazing, pale and change,

And tremble as at a void thought cannot brook.

VII.

But earth is now thy living picture, where

Thou shadowest truth, the simple and profound

By the same form in vital union bound:

Where one can see but the first step of thy stair,

Another sees it vanish far in air.

When thy king David viewed the starry round,

From heart and fingers broke the psaltery-sound:

Lord, what is man, that thou shouldst mind his prayer!

But when the child beholds the heavens on high,

He babbles childish noises--not less dear

Than what the king sang praying--to the ear

Of him who made the child and king and sky.

Earth is thy picture, painter great, whose eye

Sees with the child, sees with the kingly seer.

VIII.

If thou hadst built some mighty instrument,

And set thee down to utter ordered sound,

Whose faithful billows, from thy hands unbound,

Breaking in light, against our spirits went,

And caught, and bore above this earthly tent,

The far-strayed back to their prime natal ground,

Where all roots fast in harmony are found,

And God sits thinking out a pure consent;--

Nay, that thou couldst not; that was not for thee!

Our broken music thou must first restore--

A harder task than think thine own out free;

And till thou hast done it, no divinest score,

Though rendered by thine own angelic choir,

Can lift one human spirit from the mire.

IX.

If thou hadst been a poet! On my heart

The thought flashed sudden, burning through the weft

Of life, and with too much I sank bereft.

Up to my eyes the tears, with sudden start,

Thronged blinding: then the veil would rend and part!

The husk of vision would in twain be cleft!

Thy hidden soul in naked beauty left,

I should behold thee, Nature, as thou art!

O poet Jesus! at thy holy feet

I should have lien, sainted with listening;

My pulses answering ever, in rhythmic beat,

The stroke of each triumphant melody's wing,

Creating, as it moved, my being sweet;

My soul thy harp, thy word the quivering string.

Thee had we followed through the twilight land

Where thought grows form, and matter is refined

Back into thought of the eternal mind,

Till, seeing them one, Lo, in the morn we stand!--

Then started fresh and followed, hand in hand,

With sense divinely growing, till, combined,

We heard the music of the planets wind

In harmony with billows on the strand!--

Till, one with earth and all God's utterance,

We hardly knew whether the sun outspake,

Or a glad sunshine from our spirits brake--

Whether we think, or winds and blossoms dance!

Alas, O poet leader, for such good

Thou wast God's tragedy, writ in tears and blood!

XI.

Hadst thou been one of these, in many eyes,

Too near to be a glory for thy sheen,

Thou hadst been scorned; and to the best hadst been

A setter forth of strange divinities;

But to the few construct of harmonies,

A sudden sun, uplighting the serene

High heaven of love; and, through the cloudy screen

That 'twixt our souls and truth all wretched lies,

Dawning at length, hadst been a love and fear,

Worshipped on high from Magian's mountain-crest,

And all night long symbolled by lamp-flames clear,

Thy sign, a star upon thy people's breast--

Where that strange arbitrary token lies

Which once did scare the sun in noontide skies.

XII.

But as thou camest forth to bring the poor,

Whose hearts are nearer faith and verity,

Spiritual childhood, thy philosophy--

So taught'st the A B C of heavenly lore;

Because thou sat'st not lonely evermore,

With mighty truths informing language high,

But, walking in thy poem continually,

Didst utter deeds, of all true forms the core--

Poet and poem one indivisible fact;

Because thou didst thine own ideal act,

And so, for parchment, on the human soul

Didst write thine aspirations--at thy goal

Thou didst arrive with curses for acclaim,

And cry to God up through a cloud of shame.

XIII.

For three and thirty years, a living seed,

A lonely germ, dropt on our waste world's side,

Thy death and rising thou didst calmly bide;

Sore companied by many a clinging weed

Sprung from the fallow soil of evil and need;

Hither and thither tossed, by friends denied;

Pitied of goodness dull, and scorned of pride;

Until at length was done the awful deed,

And thou didst lie outworn in stony bower

Three days asleep--oh, slumber godlike-brief

For man of sorrows and acquaint with grief!

Life-seed thou diedst, that Death might lose his power,

And thou, with rooted stem and shadowy leaf,

Rise, of humanity the crimson flower.

XIV.

Where dim the ethereal eye, no art, though clear

As golden star in morning's amber springs,

Can pierce the fogs of low imaginings:

Painting and sculpture are a mockery mere.

Where dull to deafness is the hearing ear,

Vain is the poet. Nought but earthly things

Have credence. When the soaring skylark sings

How shall the stony statue strain to hear?

Open the deaf ear, wake the sleeping eye,

And Lo, musicians, painters, poets--all

Trooping instinctive, come without a call!

As winds that where they list blow evermore;

As waves from silent deserts roll to die

In mighty voices on the peopled shore.

XV.

Our ears thou openedst; mad'st our eyes to see.

All they who work in stone or colour fair,

Or build up temples of the quarried air,

Which we call music, scholars are of thee.

Henceforth in might of such, the earth shall be

Truth's temple-theatre, where she shall wear

All forms of revelation, all men bear

Tapers in acolyte humility.

O master-maker, thy exultant art

Goes forth in making makers! Pictures? No,

But painters, who in love and truth shall show

Glad secrets from thy God's rejoicing heart.

Sudden, green grass and waving corn up start

When through dead sands thy living waters go.

XVI.

From the beginning good and fair are one,

But men the beauty from the truth will part,

And, though the truth is ever beauty's heart,

After the beauty will, short-breathed, run,

And the indwelling truth deny and shun.

Therefore, in cottage, synagogue, and mart,

Thy thoughts came forth in common speech, not art;

With voice and eye, in Jewish Babylon,

Thou taughtest--not with pen or carved stone,

Nor in thy hand the trembling wires didst take:

Thou of the truth not less than all wouldst make;

For Truth's sake even her forms thou didst disown:

Ere, through the love of beauty, truth shall fail,

The light behind shall burn the broidered veil!

XVII.

Holy of holies, my bare feet draw nigh:

Jesus, thy body is the shining veil

By which I look on God, nor grow death-pale.

I know that in my verses poor may lie

Things low, for see, the thinker is not high!

But were my song as loud as saints' all-hail,

As pure as prophet's cry of warning wail,

As holy as thy mother's ecstasy--

He sings a better, who, for love or ruth,

Into his heart a little child doth take.

Nor thoughts nor feelings, art nor wisdom seal

The man who at thy table bread shall break.

Thy praise was not that thou didst know, or feel,

Or show, or love, but that thou didst the truth.

XVIII.

Despised! Rejected by the priest-led roar

Of the multitude! The imperial purple flung

About the form the hissing scourge had stung,

Witnessing naked to the truth it bore!

True son of father true, I thee adore.

Even the mocking purple truthful hung

On thy true shoulders, bleeding its folds among,

For thou wast king, art king for evermore!

_I know the Father: he knows me the truth_.

Truth-witness, therefore the one essential king,

With thee I die, with thee live worshipping!

O human God, O brother, eldest born,

Never but thee was there a man in sooth,

Never a true crown but thy crown of thorn!

_A MEMORIAL OF AFRICA_.

Upon a rock I sat--a mountain-side,

Far, far forsaken of the old sea's lip;

A rock where ancient waters' rise and dip,

Recoil and plunge, eddy, and oscillant tide,

Had worn and worn, while races lived and died,

Involved channels. Where the sea-weed's drip

Followed the ebb, now crumbling lichens sip

Sparse dews of heaven that down with sunset slide.

I sat long-gazing southward. A dry flow

Of withering wind sucked up my drooping strength,

Itself weak from the desert's burning length.

Behind me piled, away and up did go

Great sweeps of savage mountains--up, away,

Where snow gleams ever, panthers roam, they say.

II.

This infant world has taken long to make,

Nor hast Thou done with it, but mak'st it yet,

And wilt be working on when death has set

A new mound in some churchyard for my sake.

On flow the centuries without a break;

Uprise the mountains, ages without let;

The lichens suck; the hard rock's breast they fret;

Years more than past, the young earth yet will take.

But in the dumbness of the rolling time,

No veil of silence shall encompass me--

Thou wilt not once forget and let me be;

Rather wouldst thou some old chaotic prime

Invade, and, moved by tenderness sublime,

Unfold a world, that I, thy child, might see.

_A. M. D_.

Methinks I see thee, lying straight and low,

Silent and darkling, in thy earthy bed,

The mighty strength in which I trusted, fled,

The long arms lying careless of kiss or blow;

On thy tall form I see the night-robe flow

Down from the pale, composed face--thy head

Crowned with its own dark curls: though thou wast dead,

They dressed thee as for sleep, and left thee so!

My heart, with cares and questionings oppressed,

Not oft since thou didst leave us turns to thee;

But wait, my brother, till I too am dead,

And thou shalt find that heart more true, more free,

More ready in thy love to take its rest,

Than when we lay together in one bed.

_TO GARIBALDI--WITH A BOOK_.

When at Philippi, he who would have freed

Great Rome from tyrants, for the season brief

That lay 'twixt him and battle, sought relief

From painful thoughts, he in a book did read,

That so the death of Portia might not breed

Unmanful thoughts, and cloud his mind with grief:

Brother of Brutus, of high hearts the chief,

When thou at length receiv'st thy heavenly meed,

And I have found my hoping not in vain,

Tell me my book has wiled away one pang

That out of some lone sacred memory sprang,

Or wrought an hour's forgetfulness of pain,

And I shall rise, my heart brimful of gain,

And thank my God amid the golden clang.

_TO S. F. S_.

They say that lonely sorrows do not chance:

More gently, I think, sorrows together go;

A new one joins the funeral gliding slow

With less of jar than when it breaks the dance.

Grief swages grief, and joy doth joy enhance;

Nature is generous to her children so.

And were they quick to spy the flowers that blow,

As quick to feel the sharp-edged stones that lance

The foot that must walk naked in life's way,--

Blest by the roadside lily, free from fear,

Oftener than hurt by dash of flinty spear,

They would walk upright, bold, and earnest-gay;

And when the soft night closed the weary day,

Would sleep like those that far-off music hear.

_RUSSELL GURNEY_.

In that high country whither thou art gone,

Right noble friend, thou walkest with thy peers,

The gathered great of many a hundred years!

Few are left like thee--few, I say, not none,

Else were thy England soon a Babylon,

A land of outcry, mockery, and tears!

Higher than law, a refuge from its fears,

Wast thou, in whom embodied Justice shone.

The smile that gracious broke on thy grand face

Was like the sunrise of a morn serene

Among the mountains, making sweet their awe.

Thou both the gentle and the strong didst draw;

Thee childhood loved, and on thy breast would lean,

As, whence thou cam'st, it knew the lofty place.

_TO ONE THREATENED WITH BLINDNESS_.

Lawrence, what though the world be growing dark,

And twilight cool thy potent day inclose!

The sun, beneath the round earth sunk, still glows

All the night through, sleepless and young and stark.

Oh, be thy spirit faithful as the lark,

More daring: in the midnight of thy woes,

Dart through them, higher than earth's shadow goes,

Into the Light of which thou art a spark!

Be willing to be blind--that, in thy night,

The Lord may bring his Father to thy door,

And enter in, and feast thy soul with light.

Then shall thou dream of darksome ways no more,

Forget the gloom that round thy windows lies,

And shine, God's house, all radiant in our eyes.

II.

Say thou, his will be done who is the good!

His will be borne who knoweth how to bear!

Who also in the night had need of prayer,

Both when awoke divinely longing mood,

And when the power of darkness him withstood.

For what is coming take no jot of care:

Behind, before, around thee as the air,

He o'er thee like thy mother's heart will brood.

And when thou hast wearied thy wings of prayer,

Then fold them, and drop gently to thy nest,

Which is thy faith; and make thy people blest

With what thou bring'st from that ethereal height,

Which whoso looks on thee will straightway share:

He needs no eyes who is a shining light!

_TO AUBREY DE VERE_.

Ray of the Dawn of Truth, Aubrey de Vere,

Forgive my play fantastic with thy name,

Distilling its true essence by the flame

Which Love 'neath Fancy's limbeck lighteth clear.

I know not what thy semblance, what thy cheer;

If, as thy spirit, hale thy bodily frame,

Or furthering by failure each high aim;

If green thy leaf, or, like mine, growing sear;

But this I think, that thou wilt, by and by--

Two journeys stoutly, therefore safely trod--

We laying down the staff, and He the rod--

So look on me I shall not need to cry--

"We must be brothers, Aubrey, thou and I:

We mean the same thing--will the will of God!"

_GENERAL GORDON_.

Victorious through failure! faithful Lord,

Who for twelve angel legions wouldst not pray

From thine own country of eternal day,

To shield thee from the lanterned traitor horde,

Making thy one rash servant sheathe his sword!--

Our long retarded legions, on their way,

Toiling through sands, and shouldering Nile's down-sway,

To reach thy soldier, keeping at thy word,

Thou sawest foiled--but glorifiedst him,

Over ten cities giving him thy rule!

We will not mourn a star that grew not dim,

A soldier-child of God gone home from school!

A dregless cup, with life brimmed, he did quaff,

And quaffs it now with Christ's imperial staff!

II.

Another to the witnesses' roll-call

Hath answered, "Here I am!" and so stept out--

With willingness crowned everywhere about,

Not the head only, but the body all,

In one great nimbus of obedient fall,

His heart's blood dashing in the face of doubt--

Love's last victorious stand amid the rout!

--Silence is left, and the untasted gall.

No chariot with ramping steeds of fire

The Father sent to fetch his man-child home;

His brother only called, "My Gordon, come!"

And like a dove to heaven he did aspire,

His one wing Death, his other, Heart's-desire.

--Farewell a while! we climb where thou hast clomb!

_THE CHRYSALIS_.

Methought I floated sightless, nor did know

That I had ears until I heard the cry

As of a mighty man in agony:

"How long, Lord, shall I lie thus foul and slow?

The arrows of thy lightning through me go,

And sting and torture me--yet here I lie

A shapeless mass that scarce can mould a sigh!"

The darkness thinned; I saw a thing below

Like sheeted corpse, a knot at head and feet.

Slow clomb the sun the mountains of the dead,

And looked upon the world: the silence broke!

A blinding struggle! then the thunderous beat

Of great exulting pinions stroke on stroke!

And from that world a mighty angel fled.

_THE SWEEPER OF THE FLOOR_.

Methought that in a solemn church I stood.

Its marble acres, worn with knees and feet,

Lay spread from door to door, from street to street.

Midway the form hung high upon the rood

Of him who gave his life to be our good;

Beyond, priests flitted, bowed, and murmured meet,

Among the candles shining still and sweet.

Men came and went, and worshipped as they could--

And still their dust a woman with her broom,

Bowed to her work, kept sweeping to the door.

Then saw I, slow through all the pillared gloom,

Across the church a silent figure come:

"Daughter," it said, "thou sweepest well my floor!"

It is the Lord! I cried, and saw no more.

_DEATH_.

Mourn not, my friends, that we are growing old:

A fresher birth brings every new year in.

Years are Christ's napkins to wipe off the sin.

See now, I'll be to you an angel bold!

My plumes are ruffled, and they shake with cold,

Yet with a trumpet-blast I will begin.

--Ah, no; your listening ears not thus I win!

Yet hear, sweet sisters; brothers, be consoled:--

Behind me comes a shining one indeed;

Christ's friend, who from life's cross did take him down,

And set upon his day night's starry crown!

_Death_, say'st thou? Nay--thine be no caitiff creed!--

A woman-angel! see--in long white gown!

The mother of our youth!--she maketh speed.

ORGAN SONGS.

_TO A. J. SCOTT_

WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM.

I walked all night: the darkness did not yield.

Around me fell a mist, a weary rain,

Enduring long. At length the dawn revealed

A temple's front, high-lifted from the plain.

Closed were the lofty doors that led within;

But by a wicket one might entrance gain.

'Twas awe and silence when I entered in;

The night, the weariness, the rain were lost

In hopeful spaces. First I heard a thin

Sweet sound of voices low, together tossed,

As if they sought some harmony to find

Which they knew once, but none of all that host

Could wile the far-fled music back to mind.

Loud voices, distance-low, wandered along

The pillared paths, and up the arches twined

With sister arches, rising, throng on throng,

Up to the roof's dim height. At broken times

The voices gathered to a burst of song,

But parted sudden, and were but single rimes

By single bells through Sabbath morning sent,

That have no thought of harmony or chimes.

Hopeful confusion! Who could be content

Looking and hearkening from the distant door?

I entered further. Solemnly it went--

Thy voice, Truth's herald, walking the untuned roar,

Calm and distinct, powerful and sweet and fine:

I loved and listened, listened and loved more.

May not the faint harp, tremulous, combine

Its ghostlike sounds with organ's mighty tone?

Let my poor song be taken in to thine.

Will not thy heart, with tempests of its own,

Yet hear aeolian sighs from thin chords blown?

_LIGHT_.

First-born of the creating Voice!

Minister of God's Spirit, who wast sent

Waiting upon him first, what time he went

Moving about mid the tumultuous noise

Of each unpiloted element

Upon the face of the void formless deep!

Thou who didst come unbodied and alone

Ere yet the sun was set his rule to keep,

Or ever the moon shone,

Or e'er the wandering star-flocks forth were driven!

Thou garment of the Invisible, whose skirt

Sweeps, glory-giving, over earth and heaven!

Thou comforter, be with me as thou wert

When first I longed for words, to be

A radiant garment for my thought, like thee!

We lay us down in sorrow,

Wrapt in the old mantle of our mother Night;

In vexing dreams we strive until the morrow;

Grief lifts our eyelids up--and Lo, the light!

The sunlight on the wall! And visions rise

Of shining leaves that make sweet melodies;

Of wind-borne waves with thee upon their crests;

Of rippled sands on which thou rainest down;

Of quiet lakes that smooth for thee their breasts;

Of clouds that show thy glory as their own;

O joy! O joy! the visions are gone by!

Light, gladness, motion, are reality!

Thou art the god of earth. The skylark springs

Far up to catch thy glory on his wings;

And thou dost bless him first that highest soars.

The bee comes forth to see thee; and the flowers

Worship thee all day long, and through the skies

Follow thy journey with their earnest eyes.

River of life, thou pourest on the woods,

And on thy waves float out the wakening buds;

The trees lean toward thee, and, in loving pain,

Keep turning still to see thee yet again;

South sides of pines, haunted all day by thee,

Bear violins that tremble humanly.

And nothing in thine eyes is mean or low:

Where'er thou art, on every side,

All things are glorified;

And where thou canst not come, there thou dost throw

Beautiful shadows, made out of the dark,

That else were shapeless; now it bears thy mark.

And men have worshipped thee.

The Persian, on his mountain-top,

Waits kneeling till thy sun go up,

God-like in his serenity.

All-giving, and none-gifted, he draws near,

And the wide earth waits till his face appear--

Longs patient. And the herald glory leaps

Along the ridges of the outlying clouds,

Climbing the heights of all their towering steeps.

Sudden, still multitudinous laughter crowds

The universal face: Lo, silently,

Up cometh he, the never-closing eye!

Symbol of Deity, men could not be

Farthest from truth when they were kneeling unto thee!

Thou plaything of the child,

When from the water's surface thou dost spring,

Thyself upon his chamber ceiling fling,

And there, in mazy dance and motion wild,

Disport thyself--etherial, undefiled.

Capricious, like the thinkings of the child!

I am a child again, to think of thee

In thy consummate glee.

How I would play with thee, athirst to climb

On sloping ladders of thy moted beams,

When through the gray dust darting in long streams!

How marvel at the dusky glimmering red,

With which my closed fingers thou hadst made

Like rainy clouds that curtain the sun's bed!

And how I loved thee always in the moon!

But most about the harvest-time,

When corn and moonlight made a mellow tune,

And thou wast grave and tender as a cooing dove!

And then the stars that flashed cold, deathless love!

And the ghost-stars that shimmered in the tide!

And more mysterious earthly stars,

That shone from windows of the hill and glen--

Thee prisoned in with lattice-bars,

Mingling with household love and rest of weary men!

And still I am a child, thank God!--to spy

Thee starry stream from bit of broken glass

Upon the brown earth undescried,

Is a found thing to me, a gladness high,

A spark that lights joy's altar-fire within,

A thought of hope to prophecy akin,

That from my spirit fruitless will not pass.

Thou art the joy of age:

Thy sun is dear when long the shadow falls.

Forth to its friendliness the old man crawls,

And, like the bird hung out in his poor cage

To gather song from radiance, in his chair

Sits by the door; and sitteth there

His soul within him, like a child that lies

Half dreaming, with half-open eyes,

At close of a long afternoon in summer--

High ruins round him, ancient ruins, where

The raven is almost the only comer--

Half dreams, half broods, in wonderment

At thy celestial ascent

Through rifted loop to light upon the gold

That waves its bloom in some high airy rent:

So dreams the old man's soul, that is not old,

But sleepy mid the ruins that infold.

What soul-like changes, evanescent moods,

Upon the face of the still passive earth,

Its hills, and fields, and woods,

Thou with thy seasons and thy hours art ever calling forth!

Even like a lord of music bent

Over his instrument,

Giving to carol, now to tempest birth!

When, clear as holiness, the morning ray

Casts the rock's dewy darkness at its feet,

Mottling with shadows all the mountain gray;

When, at the hour of sovereign noon,

Infinite silent cataracts sheet

Shadowless through the air of thunder-breeding June;

When now a yellower glory slanting passes

'Twixt longer shadows o'er the meadow grasses;

And now the moon lifts up her shining shield,

High on the peak of a cloud-hill revealed;

Now crescent, low, wandering sun-dazed away,

Unconscious of her own star-mingled ray,

Her still face seeming more to think than see,

Makes the pale world lie dreaming dreams of thee!

No mood, eternal or ephemeral,

But wakes obedient at thy silent call!

Of operative single power,

And simple unity the one emblem,

Yet all the colours that our passionate eyes devour,

In rainbow, moonbow, or in opal gem,

Are the melodious descant of divided thee.

Lo thee in yellow sands! Lo thee

In the blue air and sea!

In the green corn, with scarlet poppies lit,

Thy half-souls parted, patient thou dost sit.

Lo thee in dying triumphs of the west!

Lo thee in dew-drop's tiny breast!

Thee on the vast white cloud that floats away,

Bearing upon its skirt a brown moon-ray!

Gold-regent, thou dost spendthrift throw

Thy hoardless wealth of gleam and glow!

The thousand hues and shades upon the flowers

Are all the pastime of thy leisure hours;

The jewelled ores in mines that hidden be,

Are dead till touched by thee.

Everywhere,

Thou art lancing through the air!

Every atom from another

Takes thee, gives thee to his brother;

Continually,

Thou art wetting the wet sea,

Bathing its sluggish woods below,

Making the salt flowers bud and blow;

Silently,

Workest thou, and ardently,

Waking from the night of nought

Into being and to thought;

Influences

Every beam of thine dispenses,

Potent, subtle, reaching far,

Shooting different from each star.

Not an iron rod can lie

In circle of thy beamy eye,

But its look doth change it so

That it cannot choose but show

Thou, the worker, hast been there;

Yea, sometimes, on substance rare,

Thou dost leave thy ghostly mark

Even in what men call the dark.

Ever doing, ever showing,

Thou dost set our hearts a glowing--

Universal something sent

To shadow forth the Excellent!

When the firstborn affections--

Those winged seekers of the world within,

That search about in all directions,

Some bright thing for themselves to win--

Through pathless woods, through home-bred fogs,

Through stony plains, through treacherous bogs,

Long, long, have followed faces fair,

Fair soul-less faces, vanished into air,

And darkness is around them and above,

Desolate of aught to love,

And through the gloom on every side,

Strange dismal forms are dim descried,

And the air is as the breath

From the lips of void-eyed Death,

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!

And what shall we, this Truth receiving,

Though with but a faint believing,

Call it but eternal Light?

'Tis the morning, 'twas the night!

All things most excellent

Are likened unto thee, excellent thing!

Yea, he who from the Father forth was sent,

Came like a lamp, to bring,

Across the winds and wastes of night,

The everlasting light.

Hail, Word of God, the telling of his thought!

Hail, Light of God, the making-visible!

Hail, far-transcending glory brought

In human form with man to dwell--

Thy dazzling gone; thy power not less

To show, irradiate, and bless;

The gathering of the primal rays divine

Informing chaos, to a pure sunshine!

Dull horrid pools no motion making!

No bubble on the surface breaking!

The dead air lies, without a sound,

Heavy and moveless on the marshy ground.

Rushing winds and snow-like drift,

Forceful, formless, fierce, and swift!

Hair-like vapours madly riven!

Waters smitten into dust!

Lightning through the turmoil driven,

Aimless, useless, yet it must!

Gentle winds through forests calling!

Bright birds through the thick leaves glancing!

Solemn waves on sea-shores falling!

White sails on blue waters dancing!

Mountain streams glad music giving!

Children in the clear pool laving!

Yellow corn and green grass waving!

Long-haired, bright-eyed maidens living!

Light, O radiant, it is thou!

Light!--we know our Father now!

Forming ever without form;

Showing, but thyself unseen;

Pouring stillness on the storm;

Breathing life where death had been!

If thy light thou didst draw in,

Death and Chaos soon were out,

Weltering o'er the slimy sea,

Riding on the whirlwind's rout,

In wild unmaking energy!

God, be round us and within,

Fighting darkness, slaying sin.

Father of Lights, high-lost, unspeakable,

On whom no changing shadow ever fell!

Thy light we know not, are content to see;

Thee we know not, and are content to be!--

Nay, nay! until we know thee, not content are we!

But, when thy wisdom cannot be expressed,

Shall we imagine darkness in thy breast?

Our hearts awake and witness loud for thee!

The very shadows on our souls that lie,

Good witness to the light supernal bear;

The something 'twixt us and the sky

Could cast no shadow if light were not there!

If children tremble in the night,

It is because their God is light!

The shining of the common day

Is mystery still, howe'er it ebb and flow--

Behind the seeing orb, the secret lies:

Thy living light's eternal play,

Its motions, whence or whither, who shall know?--

Behind the life itself, its fountains rise!

In thee, the Light, the darkness hath no place;

And we _have_ seen thee in the Saviour's face.

Enlighten me, O Light!--why art thou such?

Why art thou awful to our eyes, and sweet?

Cherished as love, and slaying with a touch?

Why in thee do the known and unknown meet?

Why swift and tender, strong and delicate?

Simple as truth, yet manifold in might?

Why does one love thee, and another hate?

Why cleave my words to the portals of my speech

When I a goodly matter would indite?

Why mounts my thought of thee beyond my reach?

--In vain to follow thee, I thee beseech,

For God is light.

_TO A. J. SCOTT_.

When, long ago, the daring of my youth

Drew nigh thy greatness with a little thing,

Thou didst receive me; and thy sky of truth

Has domed me since, a heaven of sheltering,

Made homely by the tenderness and grace

Which round thy absolute friendship ever fling

A radiant atmosphere. Turn not thy face

From that small part of earnest thanks, I pray,

Which, spoken, leaves much more in speechless case.

I see thee far before me on thy way

Up the great peaks, and striding stronger still;

Thy intellect unrivalled in its sway,

Upheld and ordered by a regnant will;

Thy wisdom, seer and priest of holy fate,

Searching all truths its prophecy to fill;

But this my joy: throned in thy heart so great,

High Love is queen, and sits without a mate.

_May_, 1857.

_I WOULD I WERE A CHILD_.

I would I were a child,

That I might look, and laugh, and say, My Father!

And follow thee with running feet, or rather

Be led through dark and wild!

How I would hold thy hand,

My glad eyes often to thy glory lifting!

Should darkness 'twixt thy face and mine come drifting,

My heart would but expand.

If an ill thing came near,

I would but creep within thy mantle's folding,

Shut my eyes close, thy hand yet faster holding,

And soon forget my fear.

O soul, O soul, rejoice!

Thou art God's child indeed, for all thy sinning;

A poor weak child, yet his, and worth the winning

With saviour eyes and voice.

Who spake the words? Didst Thou?

They are too good, even for such a giver:

Such water drinking once, I should feel ever

As I had drunk but now.

Yet sure the Word said so,

Teaching our lips to cry with his, Our Father!

Telling the tale of him who once did gather

His goods to him, and go!

Ah, thou dost lead me, God!

But it is dark and starless, the way dreary;

Almost I sleep, I am so very weary

Upon this rough hill-road.

_Almost_! Nay, I _do_ sleep;

There is no darkness save in this my dreaming;

Thy fatherhood above, around, is beaming;

Thy hand my hand doth keep.

With sighs my soul doth teem;

I have no knowledge but that I am sleeping;

Haunted with lies, my life will fail in weeping;

Wake me from this my dream.

How long shall heavy night

Deny the day? How long shall this dull sorrow

Say in my heart that never any morrow

Will bring the friendly light?

Lord, art thou in the room?

Come near my bed; oh, draw aside the curtain!

A child's heart would say _Father_, were it certain

That it would not presume.

But if this dreary sleep

May not be broken, help thy helpless sleeper

To rest in thee; so shall his sleep grow deeper--

For evil dreams too deep.

_Father_! I dare at length;

My childhood sure will hold me free from blaming:

Sinful yet hoping, I to thee come, claiming

Thy tenderness, my strength.

_A PRAYER FOR THE PAST_.

_All sights and sounds of day and year,

All groups and forms, each leaf and gem,

Are thine, O God, nor will I fear

To talk to thee of them_.

Too great thy heart is to despise,

Whose day girds centuries about;

From things which we name small, thine eyes

See great things looking out.

Therefore the prayerful song I sing

May come to thee in ordered words:

Though lowly born, it needs not cling

In terror to its chords.

I think that nothing made is lost;

That not a moon has ever shone,

That not a cloud my eyes hath crossed

But to my soul is gone.

That all the lost years garnered lie

In this thy casket, my dim soul;

And thou wilt, once, the key apply,

And show the shining whole.

_But were they dead in me, they live

In thee, whose Parable is--Time,

And Worlds, and Forms--all things that give

Me thoughts, and this my rime_.

_And after what men call my death,

When I have crossed the unknown sea,

Some heavenly morn, on hopeful breath,

Shall rise this prayer to thee_.

Oh let me be a child once more,

And dream fine glories in the gloom,

Of sun and moon and stars in store

To ceil my humble room.

Oh call again the moons that crossed

Blue gulfs, behind gray vapours crept;

Show me the solemn skies I lost

Because in thee I slept.

Once more let gathering glory swell,

And lift the world's dim eastern eye;

Once more let lengthening shadows tell

Its time is come to die.

But show me first--oh, blessed sight!

The lowly house where I was young;

There winter sent wild winds at night,

And up the snow-heaps flung;

Or soundless brought a chaos fair,

Full, formless, of fantastic forms,

White ghostly trees in sparkling air--

Chamber for slumbering storms.

There sudden dawned a dewy morn;

A man was turning up the mould;

And in our hearts the spring was born,

Crept thither through the cold.

_And Spring, in after years of youth,

Became the form of every form

For hearts now bursting into truth,

Now sighing in the storm_.

On with the glad year let me go,

With troops of daisies round my feet;

Flying my kite, or, in the glow

Of arching summer heat,

Outstretched in fear upon a bank,

Lest, gazing up on awful space,

I should fall down into the blank,

From off the round world's face.

And let my brothers come with me

To play our old games yet again,

Children on earth, more full of glee

That we in heaven are men.

If then should come the shadowy death,

Take one of us and go,

We left would say, under our breath,

"It is a dream, you know!"

"And in the dream our brother's gone

Upstairs: he heard our father call;

For one by one we go alone,

Till he has gathered all."

_Father, in joy our knees we bow:

This earth is not a place of tombs:

We are but in the nursery now;

They in the upper rooms_.

For are we not at home in thee,

And all this world a visioned show;

That, knowing what Abroad is, we

What Home is too may know?

_And at thy feet I sit, O Lord,

As once of old, in moonlight pale,

I at my father's sat, and heard

Him read a lofty tale_.

On with my history let me go,

And reap again the gliding years,

Gather great noontide's joyous glow,

Eve's love-contented tears;

One afternoon sit pondering

In that old chair, in that old room,

Where passing pigeon's sudden wing

Flashed lightning through the gloom;

There try once more, with effort vain,

To mould in one perplexed things;

There find the solace yet again

Hope in the Father brings;

Or mount and ride in sun and wind,

Through desert moors, hills bleak and high,

Where wandering vapours fall, and find

In me another sky!

_For so thy Visible grew mine,

Though half its power I could not know;

And in me wrought a work divine,

Which thou hadst ordered so_;

Giving me cups that would not spill,

But water carry and yield again;

New bottles with new wine to fill

For comfort of thy men.

But if thou thus restore the past

One hour, for me to wander in,

I now bethink me at the last--

O Lord, leave out the sin.

_And with the thought comes doubt, my God:

Shall I the whole desire to see,

And walk once more, of that hill-road

By which I went to thee_?

A PRAYER FOR THE PAST.

_Now far from my old northern land,

I live where gentle winters pass;

Where green seas lave a wealthy strand,

And unsown is the grass_;

Where gorgeous sunsets claim the scope

Of gazing heaven to spread their show,

Hang scarlet clouds in the topmost cope,

With fringes flaming low;

With one beside me in whose eyes

Once more old Nature finds a home;

There treasures up her changeful skies,

Her phosphorescent foam.

O'er a new joy this day we bend,

Soft power from heaven our souls to lift;

A wondering wonder thou dost lend

With loan outpassing gift--

A little child. She sees the sun--

Once more incarnates thy old law:

One born of two, two born in one,

Shall into one three draw.

But is there no day creeping on

Which I should tremble to renew?

I thank thee, Lord, for what is gone--

Thine is the future too!

_And are we not at home in Thee,

And all this world a visioned show,

That, knowing what Abroad is, we

What Home is too may know_?

_LONGING_.

My heart is full of inarticulate pain,

And beats laborious. Cold ungenial looks

Invade my sanctuary. Men of gain,

Wise in success, well-read in feeble books,

No nigher come, I pray: your air is drear;

'Tis winter and low skies when ye appear.

Beloved, who love beauty and fair truth,

Come nearer me; too near ye cannot come;

Make me an atmosphere with your sweet youth;

Give me your souls to breathe in, a large room;

Speak not a word, for, see, my spirit lies

Helpless and dumb; shine on me with your eyes.

O all wide places, far from feverous towns;

Great shining seas; pine forests; mountains wild;

Rock-bosomed shores; rough heaths, and sheep-cropt downs;

Vast pallid clouds; blue spaces undefiled--

Room! give me room! give loneliness and air--

Free things and plenteous in your regions fair!

White dove of David, flying overhead,

Golden with sunlight on thy snowy wings,

Outspeeding thee my longing thoughts are fled

To find a home afar from men of things;

Where in his temple, earth o'erarched with sky,

God's heart to mine may speak, my heart reply.

O God of mountains, stars, and boundless spaces,

O God of freedom and of joyous hearts,

When thy face looketh forth from all men's faces,

There will be room enough in crowded marts!

Brood thou around me, and the noise is o'er,

Thy universe my closet with shut door.

Heart, heart, awake! The love that loveth all

Maketh a deeper calm than Horeb's cave.

God in thee, can his children's folly gall?

Love may be hurt, but shall not love be brave?--

Thy holy silence sinks in dews of balm;

Thou art my solitude, my mountain-calm!

_I KNOW WHAT BEAUTY IS_.

I know what beauty is, for thou

Hast set the world within my heart;

Of me thou madest it a part;

I never loved it more than now.

I know the Sabbath afternoons;

The light asleep upon the graves:

Against the sky the poplar waves;

The river murmurs organ tunes.

I know the spring with bud and bell;

The hush in summer woods at night;

Autumn, when trees let in more light;

Fantastic winter's lovely spell.

I know the rapture music gives,

Its mystery of ordered tones:

Dream-muffled soul, it loves and moans,

And, half-alive, comes in and lives.

And verse I know, whose concord high

Of thought and music lifts the soul

Where many a glimmering starry shoal

Glides through the Godhead's living sky.

Yea, Beauty's regnant All I know--

The imperial head, the thoughtful eyes;

The God-imprisoned harmonies

That out in gracious motions go.

But I leave all, O Son of man,

Put off my shoes, and come to thee!

Most lovely thou of all I see,

Most potent thou of all that can!

As child forsakes his favourite toy,

His sisters' sport, his new-found nest,

And, climbing to his mother's breast,

Enjoys yet more his late-left joy--

I lose to find. On fair-browed bride

Fair pearls their fairest light afford;

So, gathered round thy glory, Lord,

All glory else is glorified.

_SYMPATHY_.

Grief held me silent in my seat;

I neither moved nor smiled:

Joy held her silent at my feet,

My shining lily-child.

She raised her face and looked in mine;

She deemed herself denied;

The door was shut, there was no shine;

Poor she was left outside!

Once, twice, three times, with infant grace

Her lips my name did mould;

Her face was pulling at my face--

She was but ten months old.

I saw; the sight rebuked my sighs;

It made me think--Does God

Need help from his poor children's eyes

To ease him of his load?

Ah, if he did, how seldom then

The Father would be glad!

If comfort lay in the eyes of men,

He little comfort had!

We cry to him in evil case,

When comfort sore we lack;

And when we troubled seek his face,

Consoled he sends us back;

Nor waits for prayer to rise and climb--

He wakes the sleeping prayer;

He is our father all the time,

And servant everywhere.

I looked not up; foreboding hid

Kept down my heart the while;

'Twas he looked up; my Father did

Smile in my infant's smile.

_THE THANK-OFFERING_.

My Lily snatches not my gift;

Glad is she to be fed,

But to her mouth she will not lift

The piece of broken bread,

Till on my lips, unerring, swift,

The morsel she has laid.

This is her grace before her food,

This her libation poured;

Even thus his offering, Aaron good

Heaved up to thank the Lord,

When for the people all he stood,

And with a cake adored.

So, Father, every gift of thine

I offer at thy knee;

Else take I not the love divine

With which it comes to me;

Not else the offered grace is mine

Of sharing life with thee.

Yea, all my being I would bring,

Yielding it utterly,

Not yet a full-possessed thing

Till heaved again to thee:

Away, my self! away, and cling

To him that makes thee be!

_PRAYER_.

We doubt the word that tells us: Ask,

And ye shall have your prayer;

We turn our thoughts as to a task,

With will constrained and rare.

And yet we have; these scanty prayers

Yield gold without alloy:

O God, but he that trusts and dares

Must have a boundless joy!

_REST_.

When round the earth the Father's hands

Have gently drawn the dark;

Sent off the sun to fresher lands,

And curtained in the lark;

'Tis sweet, all tired with glowing day,

To fade with fading light,

And lie once more, the old weary way,

Upfolded in the night.

If mothers o'er our slumbers bend,

And unripe kisses reap,

In soothing dreams with sleep they blend,

Till even in dreams we sleep.

And if we wake while night is dumb,

'Tis sweet to turn and say,

It is an hour ere dawning come,

And I will sleep till day.

II.

There is a dearer, warmer bed,

Where one all day may lie,

Earth's bosom pillowing the head,

And let the world go by.

There come no watching mother's eyes,

The stars instead look down;

Upon it breaks, and silent dies,

The murmur of the town.

The great world, shouting, forward fares:

This chamber, hid from none,

Hides safe from all, for no one cares

For him whose work is done.

Cheer thee, my friend; bethink thee how

A certain unknown place,

Or here or there, is waiting now,

To rest thee from thy race.

III.

Nay, nay, not there the rest from harms,

The still composed breath!

Not there the folding of the arms,

The cool, the blessed death!

_That_ needs no curtained bed to hide

The world with all its wars,

No grassy cover to divide

From sun and moon and stars.

It is a rest that deeper grows

In midst of pain and strife;

A mighty, conscious, willed repose,

The death of deepest life.

To have and hold the precious prize

No need of jealous bars;

But windows open to the skies,

And skill to read the stars!

IV.

Who dwelleth in that secret place,

Where tumult enters not,

Is never cold with terror base,

Never with anger hot.

For if an evil host should dare

His very heart invest,

God is his deeper heart, and there

He enters in to rest.

When mighty sea-winds madly blow,

And tear the scattered waves,

Peaceful as summer woods, below

Lie darkling ocean caves:

The wind of words may toss my heart,

But what is that to me!

Tis but a surface storm--thou art

My deep, still, resting sea.

_O DO NOT LEAVE ME_.

O do not leave me, mother, lest I weep;

Till I forget, be near me in that chair.

The mother's presence leads her down to sleep--

Leaves her contented there.

O do not leave me, lover, brother, friends,

Till I am dead, and resting in my place.

Love-compassed thus, the girl in peace ascends,

And leaves a raptured face.

Leave me not, God, until--nay, until when?

Not till I have with thee one heart, one mind;

Not till the Life is Light in me, and then

Leaving is left behind.

_BLESSED ARE THE MEEK, FOR THEY SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH_.

A quiet heart, submissive, meek,

Father, do thou bestow,

Which more than granted, will not seek

To have, or give, or know.

Each little hill then holds its gift

Forth to my joying eyes;

Each mighty mountain then doth lift

My spirit to the skies.

Lo, then the running water sounds

With gladsome, secret things!

The silent water more abounds,

And more the hidden springs.

Live murmurs then the trees will blend

With all the feathered song;

The waving grass low tribute lend

Earth's music to prolong.

The sun will cast great crowns of light

On waves that anthems roar;

The dusky billows break at night

In flashes on the shore.

Each harebell, each white lily's cup,

The hum of hidden bee,

Yea, every odour floating up,

The insect revelry--

Each hue, each harmony divine

The holy world about,

Its soul will send forth into mine,

My soul to widen out.

And thus the great earth I shall hold,

A perfect gift of thine;

Richer by these, a thousandfold,

Than if broad lands were mine.

_HYMN FOR A SICK GIRL_.

Father, in the dark I lay,

Thirsting for the light,

Helpless, but for hope alway

In thy father-might.

Out of darkness came the morn,

Out of death came life,

I, and faith, and hope, new-born,

Out of moaning strife!

So, one morning yet more fair,

I shall, joyous-brave,

Sudden breathing loftier air,

Triumph o'er the grave.

Though this feeble body lie

Underneath the ground,

Wide awake, not sleeping, I

Shall in him be found.

But a morn yet fairer must

Quell this inner gloom--

Resurrection from the dust

Of a deeper tomb!

Father, wake thy little child;

Give me bread and wine

Till my spirit undefiled

Rise and live in thine.

_WRITTEN FOR ONE IN SORE PAIN_.

Shepherd, on before thy sheep,

Hear thy lamb that bleats behind!

Scarce the track I stumbling keep!

Through my thin fleece blows the wind!

Turn and see me, Son of Man!

Turn and lift thy Father's child;

Scarce I walk where once I ran:

Carry me--the wind is wild!

Thou art strong--thy strength wilt share;

My poor weight thou wilt not feel;

Weakness made thee strong to bear,

Suffering made thee strong to heal!

I were still a wandering sheep

But for thee, O Shepherd-man!

Following now, I faint, I weep,

Yet I follow as I can!

Shepherd, if I fall and lie

Moaning in the frosty wind,

Yet, I know, I shall not die--

Thou wilt miss me--and wilt find!

_A CHRISTMAS CAROL FOR 1862_,

THE YEAR OF THE TROUBLE IN LANCASHIRE.

The skies are pale, the trees are stiff,

The earth is dull and old;

The frost is glittering as if

The very sun were cold.

And hunger fell is joined with frost,

To make men thin and wan:

Come, babe, from heaven, or we are lost;

Be born, O child of man.

The children cry, the women shake,

The strong men stare about;

They sleep when they should be awake,

They wake ere night is out.

For they have lost their heritage--

No sweat is on their brow:

Come, babe, and bring them work and wage;

Be born, and save us now.

Across the sea, beyond our sight,

Roars on the fierce debate;

The men go down in bloody fight,

The women weep and hate;

And in the right be which that may,

Surely the strife is long!

Come, son of man, thy righteous way,

And right will have no wrong.

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!

O fill our hearts, and heap our board,

Pray thee--the winter's wild!

The sky is sad, the trees are bare,

Hunger and hate about:

Come, child, and ill deeds and ill fare

Will soon be driven out.

_A CHRISTMAS CAROL_.

Babe Jesus lay in Mary's lap,

The sun shone in his hair;

And this was how she saw, mayhap,

The crown already there.

For she sang: "Sleep on, my little king;

Bad Herod dares not come;

Before thee sleeping, holy thing,

The wild winds would be dumb."

"I kiss thy hands, I kiss thy feet,

My child, so long desired;

Thy hands will never be soiled, my sweet;

Thy feet will never be tired."

"For thou art the king of men, my son;

Thy crown I see it plain!

And men shall worship thee, every one,

And cry, Glory! Amen!"

Babe Jesus he opened his eyes wide--

At Mary looked her lord.

Mother Mary stinted her song and sighed;

Babe Jesus said never a word.

_THE SLEEPLESS JESUS_.

'Tis time to sleep, my little boy:

Why gaze thy bright eyes so?

At night our children, for new joy

Home to thy father go,

But thou art wakeful! Sleep, my child;

The moon and stars are gone;

The wind is up and raving wild,

But thou art smiling on!

My child, thou hast immortal eyes

That see by their own light;

They see the children's blood--it lies

Red-glowing through the night!

Thou hast an ever-open ear

For sob or cry or moan:

Thou seemest not to see or hear,

Thou only smilest on!

When first thou camest to the earth,

All sounds of strife were still;

A silence lay about thy birth,

And thou didst sleep thy fill:

Thou wakest now--why weep'st thou not?

Thy earth is woe-begone;

Both babes and mothers wail their lot,

But still thou smilest on!

I read thy face like holy book;

No hurt is pictured there;

Deep in thine eyes I see the look

Of one who answers prayer.

Beyond pale grief and wild uproars,

Thou seest God's will well done;

Low prayers, through chambers' closed doors,

Thou hear'st--and smilest on.

Men say: "I will arise and go;"

God says: "I will go meet:"

Thou seest them gather, weeping low,

About the Father's feet;

And each for each begin to bear,

And standing lonely none:

Answered, O eyes, ye see all prayer!

Smile, Son of God, smile on.

_CHRISTMAS, 1873_.

Christmas-Days are still in store:--

Will they change--steal faded hither?

Or come fresh as heretofore,

Summering all our winter weather?

Surely they will keep their bloom

All the countless pacing ages:

In the country whence they come

Children only are the sages!

Hither, every hour and year,

Children come to cure our oldness--

Oft, alas, to gather sear

Unbelief, and earthy boldness!

Men they grow and women cold,

Selfish, passionate, and plaining!

Ever faster they grow old:--

On the world, ah, eld is gaining!

Child, whose childhood ne'er departs!

Jesus, with the perfect father!

Drive the age from parents' hearts;

To thy heart the children gather.

Send thy birth into our souls,

With its grand and tender story.

Hark! the gracious thunder rolls!--

News to men! to God old glory!

_CHRISTMAS, 1884_.

Though in my heart no Christmas glee,

Though my song-bird be dumb,

Jesus, it is enough for me

That thou art come.

What though the loved be scattered far,

Few at the board appear,

In thee, O Lord, they gathered are,

And thou art here.

And if our hearts be low with lack,

They are not therefore numb;

Not always will thy day come back--

Thyself will come!

_AN OLD STORY_.

In the ancient house of ages,

See, they cannot rest!

With a hope, which awe assuages,

Tremble all the blest.

For the son and heir eternal,

To be son yet more,

Leaves his stately chair supernal

For the earth's low floor;

Leaves the room so high and old,

Leaves the all-world hearth,

Seeks the out-air, frosty-cold,

Of the twilight earth--

To be throned in newer glory

In a mother's lap,

Gather up our broken story,

And right every hap.

II.

There Earth's foster-baby lies,

Sleep-dimmed all his graces,

'Neath four stars of parents' eyes,

And two heavens of faces!

See! the cow and ass, dumb-staring,

Feel the skirts of good

Fold them in dull-blessed sharing

Of infinitude.

Make a little room betwixt you,

Pray you, Ass and Cow!

Sure we shall, if I kneel next you,

Know each other now!

To the pit-fallen comes salvation--

Love is never loath!

Here we are, thy whole creation,

Waiting, Lord, thy growth!

III.

On the slopes of Bethlehem,

Round their resting sheep,

Shepherds sat, and went and came,

Guarding holy sleep;

But the silent, high dome-spaces,

Airy galleries,

Thronged they were with watching faces,

Thronged with open eyes.

Far across the desert floor,

Come, slow-drawing nigher,

Sages deep in starry lore,

Priests of burning Fire.

In the sky they read his story,

And, through starlight cool,

They come riding to the Glory,

To the Wonderful.

IV.

Babe and mother, coming Mage,

Shepherd, ass, and cow!

Angels watching the new age,

Time's intensest Now!

Heaven down-brooding, Earth upstraining,

Far ends closing in!

Sure the eternal tide is gaining

On the strand of sin!

See! but see! Heaven's chapel-master

Signs with lifted hand;

Winds divine blow fast and faster,

Swelling bosoms grand.

Hark the torrent-joy let slip!

Hark the great throats ring!

Glory! Peace! Good-fellowship!

And a Child for king!

_A SONG FOR CHRISTMAS_.

Hark, in the steeple the dull bell swinging

Over the furrows ill ploughed by Death!

Hark the bird-babble, the loud lark singing!

Hark, from the sky, what the prophet saith!

Hark, in the pines, the free Wind, complaining--

Moaning, and murmuring, "Life is bare!"

Hark, in the organ, the caught Wind, outstraining,

Jubilant rise in a soaring prayer!

Toll for the burying, sexton tolling!

Sing for the second birth, angel Lark!

Moan, ye poor Pines, with the Past condoling!

Burst out, brave Organ, and kill the Dark!

II.

Sit on the ground, and immure thy sorrow;

I will give freedom to mine in song!

Haunt thou the tomb, and deny the morrow;

I will go watch in the dawning long!

For I shall see them, and know their faces--

Tenderer, sweeter, and shining more;

Clasp the old self in the new embraces;

Gaze through their eyes' wide open door.

Loved ones, I come to you: see my sadness;

I am ashamed--but you pardon wrong!

Smile the old smile, and my soul's new gladness

Straight will arise in sorrow and song!

_TO MY AGING FRIENDS_.

It is no winter night comes down

Upon our hearts, dear friends of old;

But a May evening, softly brown,

Whose wind is rather cold.

We are not, like yon sad-eyed West,

Phantoms that brood o'er Time's dust-hoard,

We are like yon Moon--in mourning drest,

But gazing on her lord.

Come nearer to the hearth, sweet friends,

Draw nigher, closer, hand and chair;

Ours is a love that never ends,

For God is dearest there!

We will not talk about the past,

We will not ponder ancient pain;

Those are but deep foundations cast

For peaks of soaring gain!

We, waiting Dead, will warm our bones

At our poor smouldering earthly fire;

And talk of wide-eyed living ones

Who have what we desire.

O Living, ye know what is death--

We, by and by, shall know it too!

Humble, with bated, hoping breath,

We are coming fast to you!

_CHRISTMAS SONG OF THE OLD CHILDREN_.

Well for youth to seek the strong,

Beautiful, and brave!

We, the old, who walk along

Gently to the grave,

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.

Gray-haired children come in crowds,

Thee, their Hope, to greet:

Is it swaddling clothes or shrouds

Hampering so our feet?

Eldest child, the shadows gloom:

Take the aged children home.

We have had enough of play,

And the wood grows drear;

Many who at break of day

Companied us here--

They have vanished out of sight,

Gone and met the coming light!

Fair is this out-world of thine,

But its nights are cold;

And the sun that makes it fine

Makes us soon so old!

Long its shadows grow and dim--

Father, take us back with him!

1891.

_CHRISTMAS MEDITATION_.

He who by a mother's love

Made the wandering world his own,

Every year comes from above,

Comes the parted to atone,

Binding Earth to the Father's throne.

Nay, thou comest every day!

No, thou never didst depart!

Never hour hast been away!

Always with us, Lord, thou art,

Binding, binding heart to heart!

_THE OLD CASTLE_.

The brother knew well the castle old,

Every closet, each outlook fair,

Every turret and bartizan bold,

Every chamber, garnished or bare.

The brother was out in the heavenly air;

Little ones lost the starry way,

Wandered down the dungeon stair.

The brother missed them, and on the clay

Of the dungeon-floor he found them all.

Up they jumped when they heard him call!

He led the little ones into the day--

Out and up to the sunshine gay,

Up to the father's own door-sill--

In at the father's own room door,

There to be merry and work and play,

There to come and go at their will,

Good boys and girls to be lost no more!

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;

For the path is rough, and we must not roam;

We have learned to walk, and must follow him home!

_CHRISTMAS DAY AND EVERY DAY_.

Star high,

Baby low:

'Twixt the two

Wise men go;

Find the baby,

Grasp the star--

Heirs of all things

Near and far!

THE CHILDREN'S HEAVEN.

The infant lies in blessed ease

Upon his mother's breast;

No storm, no dark, the baby sees

Invade his heaven of rest.

He nothing knows of change or death--

Her face his holy skies;

The air he breathes, his mother's breath;

His stars, his mother's eyes!

Yet half the soft winds wandering there

Are sighs that come of fears;

The dew slow falling through that air--

It is the dew of tears;

And ah, my child, thy heavenly home

Hath storms as well as dew;

Black clouds fill sometimes all its dome,

And quench the starry blue!

"My smile would win no smile again,

If baby saw the things

That ache across his mother's brain

The while to him she sings!

Thy faith in me is faith in vain--

I am not what I seem:

O dreary day, O cruel pain,

That wakes thee from thy dream!"

Nay, pity not his dreams so fair,

Fear thou no waking grief;

Oh, safer he than though thou were

Good as his vague belief!

There is a heaven that heaven above

Whereon he gazes now;

A truer love than in thy kiss;

A better friend than thou!

The Father's arms fold like a nest

Both thee and him about;

His face looks down, a heaven of rest,

Where comes no dark, no doubt.

Its mists are clouds of stars that move

On, on, with progress rife;

Its winds, the goings of his love;

Its dew, the dew of life.

We for our children seek thy heart,

For them we lift our eyes:

Lord, should their faith in us depart,

Let faith in thee arise.

When childhood's visions them forsake,

To women grown and men,

Back to thy heart their hearts oh take,

And bid them dream again.

_REJOICE_.

"Rejoice," said the Sun; "I will make thee gay

With glory and gladness and holiday;

I am dumb, O man, and I need thy voice!"

But man would not rejoice.

"Rejoice in thyself," said he, "O Sun,

For thy daily course is a lordly one;

In thy lofty place rejoice if thou can:

For me, I am only a man."

"Rejoice," said the Wind; "I am free and strong,

And will wake in thy heart an ancient song;

Hear the roaring woods, my organ noise!"

But man would not rejoice.

"Rejoice, O Wind, in thy strength," said he,

"For thou fulfillest thy destiny;

Shake the forest, the faint flowers fan;

For me, I am only a man."

"Rejoice," said the Night, "with moon and star,

For the Sun and the Wind are gone afar;

I am here with rest and dreaming choice!"

But man would not rejoice;

For he said--"What is rest to me, I pray,

Whose labour leads to no gladsome day?

He only can dream who has hope behind:

Alas for me and my kind!"

Then a voice that came not from moon or star,

From the sun, or the wind that roved afar,

Said, "Man, I am with thee--hear my voice!"

And man said, "I rejoice."

_THE GRACE OF GRACE_.

Had I the grace to win the grace

Of some old man in lore complete,

My face would worship at his face,

And I sit lowly at his feet.

Had I the grace to win the grace

Of childhood, loving shy, apart,

The child should find a nearer place,

And teach me resting on my heart.

Had I the grace to win the grace

Of maiden living all above,

My soul would trample down the base,

That she might have a man to love.

A grace I had no grace to win

Knocks now at my half open door:

Ah, Lord of glory, come thou in!--

Thy grace divine is all, and more.

_ANTIPHON_.

Daylight fades away.

Is the Lord at hand

In the shadows gray

Stealing on the land?

Gently from the east

Come the shadows gray;

But our lowly priest

Nearer is than they.

It is darkness quite.

Is the Lord at hand,

In the cloak of night

Stolen upon the land?

But I see no night,

For my Lord is here

With him dark is light,

With him far is near.

List! the cock's awake.

Is the Lord at hand?

Cometh he to make

Light in all the land?

Long ago he made

Morning in my heart;

Long ago he bade

Shadowy things depart.

Lo, the dawning hill!

Is the Lord at hand,

Come to scatter ill,

Ruling in the land?

He hath scattered ill,

Ruling in my mind;

Growing to his will,

Freedom comes, I find.

We will watch all day,

Lest the Lord should come;

All night waking stay

In the darkness dumb.

I will work all day,

For the Lord hath come;

Down my head will lay

All night, glad and dumb.

For we know not when

Christ may be at hand;

But we know that then

Joy is in the land.

For I know that where

Christ hath come again,

Quietness without care

Dwelleth in his men.

_DORCAS_.

If I might guess, then guess I would

That, mid the gathered folk,

This gentle Dorcas one day stood,

And heard when Jesus spoke.

She saw the woven seamless coat--

Half envious, for his sake:

"Oh, happy hands," she said, "that wrought

The honoured thing to make!"

Her eyes with longing tears grow dim:

She never can come nigh

To work one service poor for him

For whom she glad would die!

But, hark, he speaks! Oh, precious word!

And she has heard indeed!

"When did we see thee naked, Lord,

And clothed thee in thy need?"

"The King shall answer, Inasmuch

As to my brethren ye

Did it--even to the least of such--

Ye did it unto me."

Home, home she went, and plied the loom,

And Jesus' poor arrayed.

She died--they wept about the room,

And showed the coats she made.

_MARRIAGE SONG_.

"They have no more wine!" she said.

But they had enough of bread;

And the vessels by the door

Held for thirst a plenteous store:

Yes, _enough_; but Love divine

Turned the water into wine!

When should wine like water flow,

But when home two glad hearts go!

When, in sacred bondage bound,

Soul in soul hath freedom found!

Such the time when, holy sign,

Jesus turned the water wine.

Good is all the feasting then;

Good the merry words of men;

Good the laughter and the smiles;

Good the wine that grief beguiles;--

Crowning good, the Word divine

Turning water into wine!

Friends, the Master with you dwell!

Daily work this miracle!

When fair things too common grow,

Bring again their heavenly show!

Ever at your table dine,

Turning water into wine!

So at last you shall descry

All the patterns of the sky:

Earth a heaven of short abode;

Houses temples unto God;

Water-pots, to vision fine,

Brimming full of heavenly wine.

_BLIND BARTIMEUS_.

As Jesus went into Jericho town,

Twas darkness all, from toe to crown,

About blind Bartimeus.

He said, "My eyes are more than dim,

They are no use for seeing him:

No matter--he can see us!"

"Cry out, cry out, blind brother--cry;

Let not salvation dear go by.--

Have mercy, Son of David."

Though they were blind, they both could hear--

They heard, and cried, and he drew near;

And so the blind were saved.

O Jesus Christ, I am very blind;

Nothing comes through into my mind;

'Tis well I am not dumb:

Although I see thee not, nor hear,

I cry because thou may'st be near:

O son of Mary, come!

I hear it through the all things blind:

Is it thy voice, so gentle and kind--

"Poor eyes, no more be dim"?

A hand is laid upon mine eyes;

I hear, and hearken, see, and rise;--

'Tis He! I follow him!

_COME UNTO ME_.

Come unto me, the Master says:--

But how? I am not good;

No thankful song my heart will raise,

Nor even wish it could.

I am not sorry for the past,

Nor able not to sin;

The weary strife would ever last

If once I should begin!

Hast thou no burden then to bear?

No action to repent?

Is all around so very fair?

Is thy heart quite content?

Hast thou no sickness in thy soul?

No labour to endure?

Then go in peace, for thou art whole;

Thou needest not his cure.

Ah, mock me not! I often sigh;

I have a nameless grief,

A faint sad pain--but such that I

Can look for no relief.

Come, come to him who made thy heart;

Come weary and oppressed;

To come to Jesus is thy part,

His part to give thee rest.

New grief, new hope he will bestow,

Thy grief and pain to quell;

Into thy heart himself will go,

And that will make thee well.

_MORNING HYMN_.

O Lord of life, thy quickening voice

Awakes my morning song!

In gladsome words I would rejoice

That I to thee belong.

I see thy light, I feel thy wind;

The world, it is thy word;

Whatever wakes my heart and mind,

Thy presence is, my Lord.

The living soul which I call me

Doth love, and long to know;

It is a thought of living thee,

Nor forth of thee can go.

Therefore I choose my highest part,

And turn my face to thee;

Therefore I stir my inmost heart

To worship fervently.

Lord, let me live and will this day--

Keep rising from the dead;

Lord, make my spirit good and gay--

Give me my daily bread.

Within my heart, speak, Lord, speak on,

My heart alive to keep,

Till comes the night, and, labour done,

In thee I fall asleep.

_NOONTIDE HYMN_.

I love thy skies, thy sunny mists,

Thy fields, thy mountains hoar,

Thy wind that bloweth where it lists--

Thy will, I love it more.

I love thy hidden truth to seek

All round, in sea, on shore;

The arts whereby like gods we speak--

Thy will to me is more.

I love thy men and women, Lord,

The children round thy door;

Calm thoughts that inward strength afford--

Thy will than these is more.

But when thy will my life doth hold

Thine to the very core,

The world, which that same will doth mould,

I love, then, ten times more!

_EVENING HYMN_.

O God, whose daylight leadeth down

Into the sunless way,

Who with restoring sleep dost crown

The labour of the day!

What I have done, Lord, make it clean

With thy forgiveness dear;

That so to-day what might have been,

To-morrow may appear.

And when my thought is all astray,

Yet think thou on in me;

That with the new-born innocent day

My soul rise fresh and free.

Nor let me wander all in vain

Through dreams that mock and flee;

But even in visions of the brain,

Go wandering toward thee.

_THE HOLY MIDNIGHT_.

Ah, holy midnight of the soul,

When stars alone are high;

When winds are resting at their goal,

And sea-waves only sigh!

Ambition faints from out the will;

Asleep sad longing lies;

All hope of good, all fear of ill,

All need of action dies;

Because God is, and claims the life

He kindled in thy brain;

And thou in him, rapt far from strife,

Diest and liv'st again.

_RONDEL_.

I follow, tottering, in the funeral train

That bears my body to the welcoming grave.

As those I mourn not, that entomb the brave,

But smile as those that lay aside the vain;

To me it is a thing of poor disdain,

A clod I would not give a sigh to save!

I follow, careless, in the funeral train,

My outworn raiment to the cleansing grave.

I follow to the grave with growing pain--

Then sudden cry: Let Earth take what she gave!

And turn in gladness from the yawning cave--

Glad even for those whose tears yet flow amain:

They also follow, in their funeral train,

Outworn necessities to the welcoming grave!

_A PRAYER_.

When I look back upon my life nigh spent,

Nigh spent, although the stream as yet flows on,

I more of follies than of sins repent,

Less for offence than Love's shortcomings moan.

With self, O Father, leave me not alone--

Leave not with the beguiler the beguiled;

Besmirched and ragged, Lord, take back thine own:

A fool I bring thee to be made a child.

_HOME FROM THE WARS_.

A tattered soldier, gone the glow and gloss,

With wounds half healed, and sorely trembling knee,

Homeward I come, to claim no victory-cross:

I only faced the foe, and did not flee.

_GOD; NOT GIFT_.

Gray clouds my heaven have covered o'er;

My sea ebbs fast, no more to flow;

Ghastly and dry, my desert shore

Parched, bare, unsightly things doth show.

'Tis thou, Lord, cloudest up my sky;

Stillest the heart-throb of my sea;

Tellest the sad wind not to sigh,

Yea, life itself to wait for thee!

Lord, here I am, empty enough!

My music but a soundless moan!

Blind hope, of all my household stuff,

Leaves me, blind hope, not quite alone!

Shall hope too go, that I may trust

Purely in thee, and spite of all?

Then turn my very heart to dust--

On thee, on thee, I yet will call.

List! list! his wind among the pines

Hark! hark! that rushing is his sea's!

O Father, these are but thy signs!--

For thee I hunger, not for these!

Not joy itself, though pure and high--

No gift will do instead of thee!

Let but my spirit know thee nigh,

And all the world may sleep for me!

_TO ANY FRIEND_.

If I did seem to you no more

Than to myself I seem,

Not thus you would fling wide the door,

And on the beggar beam!

You would not don your radiant best,

Or dole me more than half!

Poor palmer I, no angel guest;

A shaking reed my staff!

At home, no rich fruit, hanging low,

Have I for Love to pull;

Only unripe things that must grow

Till Autumn's maund be full!

But I forsake my niggard leas,

My orchard, too late hoar,

And wander over lands and seas

To find the Father's door.

When I have reached the ancestral farm,

Have clomb the steepy hill,

And round me rests the Father's arm,

Then think me what you will.

VIOLIN SONGS.

_HOPE DEFERRED_.

Summer is come again. The sun is bright,

And the soft wind is breathing. Airy joy

Is sparkling in thine eyes, and in their light

My soul is shining. Come; our day's employ

Shall be to revel in unlikely things,

In gayest hopes, fondest imaginings,

And make-believes of bliss. Come, we will talk

Of waning moons, low winds, and a dim sea;

Till this fair summer, deepening as we walk,

Has grown a paradise for you and me.

But ah, those leaves!--it was not summer's mouth

Breathed such a gold upon them. And look there--

That beech how red! See, through its boughs, half-bare,

How low the sun lies in the mid-day south!--

The sweetness is but one pined memory flown

Back from our summer, wandering alone!

See, see the dead leaves falling! Hear thy heart,

Which, with the year's pulse beating swift or slow,

Takes in the changing world its changing part,

Return a sigh, an echo sad and low,

To the faint, scarcely audible sound

With which the leaf goes whispering to the ground!

O love, sad winter lieth at the door--

Behind sad winter, age--we know no more.

Come round me, dear hearts. All of us will hold

Each of us compassed: we are growing old;

And if we be not as a ring enchanted,

Hearts around heart, with love to keep it gay,

The young, who claim the joy that haunted

Our visions once, will push us far away

Into the desolate regions, dim and gray,

Where the sea moans, and hath no other cry,

The clouds hang low, and have no tears,

Old dreams lie mouldering in a pit of years,

And hopes and songs all careless pass us by.

But if all each do keep,

The rising tide of youth will sweep

Around us with its laughter-joyous waves,

As ocean fair some palmy island laves,

To loneliness heaved slow from out the deep;

And our youth hover round us like the breath

Of one that sleeps, and sleepeth not to death.

Thus ringed eternally, to parted graves,

The sundered doors into one palace home,

Stumbling through age's thickets, we will go,

Faltering but faithful--willing to lie low,

Willing to part, not willing to deny

The lovely past, where all the futures lie.

Oh! if thou be, who of the live art lord,

Not of the dead--Lo, by that self-same word,

Thou art not lord of age, but lord of youth--

Because there is no age, in sooth,

Beyond its passing shows!

A mist o'er life's dimmed lantern grows;

Thou break'st the glass, out streams the light

That knows not youth nor age,

That fears no darkness nor the rage

Of windy tempests--burning still more bright

Than when glad youth was all about,

And summer winds were out!

1845.

_DEATH_.

When in the bosom of the eldest night

This body lies, cold as a sculptured rest;

When through its shaded windows comes no light,

And its pale hands are folded on its breast--

How shall I fare, who had to wander out,

And of the unknown land the frontier cross,

Peering vague-eyed, uncertain, all about,

Unclothed, mayhap unwelcomed, bathed in loss?

Shall I depart slow-floating like a mist,

Over the city murmuring beneath;

Over the trees and fields, where'er I list,

Seeking the mountain and the lonely heath?

Or will a darkness, o'er material shows

Descending, hide them from the spirit's sight;

As from the sun a blotting radiance flows

Athwart the stars all glorious through the night;

And the still spirit hang entranced, alone,

Like one in an exalted opium-dream--

Soft-flowing time, insisting space, o'erblown,

With form and colour, tone and touch and gleam,

Thought only waking--thought that may not own

The lapse of ages, or the change of spot;

Its doubt all cast on what it counted known,

Its faith all fixed on what appeareth not?

Or, worn with weariness, shall we sleep until,

Our life restored by long and dreamless rest,

Of God's oblivion we have drunk our fill,

And wake his little ones, peaceful and blest?

I nothing know, and nothing need to know.

God is; I shall be ever in his sight!

Give thou me strength to labour well, and so

Do my day's work ere fall my coming night.

_HARD TIMES_.

I am weary, and very lonely,

And can but think--think.

If there were some water only

That a spirit might drink--drink,

And arise,

With light in the eyes

And a crown of hope on the brow,

To walk abroad in the strength of gladness,

Not sit in the house, benumbed with sadness--

As now!

But, Lord, thy child will be sad--

As sad as it pleases thee;

Will sit, not seeking to be glad,

Till thou bid sadness flee,

And, drawing near,

With thy good cheer

Awake thy life in me.

_IF I WERE A MONK, AND THOU WERT A NUN_.

If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun,

Pacing it wearily, wearily,

Twixt chapel and cell till day were done--

Wearily, wearily--

How would it fare with these hearts of ours

That need the sunshine, and smiles, and flowers?

To prayer, to prayer, at the matins' call,

Morning foul or fair!--

Such prayer as from weary lips might fall--

Words, but hardly prayer--

The chapel's roof, like the law in stone,

Caging the lark that up had flown!

Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon,

The God-revealing,

Turning thy face from the boundless boon--

Painfully kneeling;

Or, in brown-shadowy solitude,

Bending thy head o'er the legend rude!

I, in a bare and lonely nook,

Gloomily, gloomily,

Poring over some musty book,

Thoughtfully, thoughtfully;

Or painting pictures of things of old

On parchment-margin in purple and gold!

Perchance in slow procession to meet,

Wearily, wearily,

In antique, narrow, high-gabled street,

Wearily, wearily;

Thine eyes dark-lifted to mine, and then

Heavily sinking to earth again!

Sunshine and air! bird-music and spring!

Merrily, merrily!--

Back to its cell each weary thing,

Wearily, wearily!

Our poor hearts, withered and dry and old,

Most at home in the cloister cold!

Thou slow rising at vespers' call,

Wearily, wearily;

I looking up on the darkening wall,

Wearily, wearily;

The chime so sweet to the boat at sea,

Listless and dead to thee and me!

At length for sleep a weary assay,

On the lone couch wearily!

Rising at midnight again to pray,

Wearily, wearily!

And if through the dark dear eyes looked in,

Sending them far as a thought of sin!

And at last, thy tired soul passing away,

Dreamily, dreamily--

Its worn tent fluttering in slow decay,

Sleepily, sleepily--

Over thee held the crucified Best,

But no warm cheek to thy cold cheek pressed!

And then my passing from cell to clay,

Dreamily, dreamily!

My gray head lying on ashes gray,

Sleepily, sleepily!

But no woman-angel hovering above,

Ready to clasp me in deathless love!

Now, now, ah, now! thy hand in mine,

Peacefully, peacefully;

My arm round thee, and my lips on thine,

Lovingly, lovingly--

Oh! is not a better thing to us given

Than wearily going alone to heaven?

_MY HEART_.

Night, with her power to silence day,

Filled up my lonely room,

Quenching all sounds but one that lay

Beyond her passing doom,

Where in his shed a workman gay

Went on despite the gloom.

I listened, and I knew the sound,

And the trade that he was plying;

For backwards, forwards, bound on bound,

A shuttle was flying, flying--

Weaving ever--till, all unwound,

The weft go out a sighing.

II.

As hidden in thy chamber lowest

As in the sky the lark,

Thou, mystic thing, on working goest

Without the poorest spark,

And yet light's garment round me throwest,

Who else, as thou, were dark.

With body ever clothing me,

Thou mak'st me child of light;

I look, and, Lo, the earth and sea,

The sky's rejoicing height,

A woven glory, globed by thee,

Unknowing of thy might!

And when thy darkling labours fail,

And thy shuttle moveless lies,

My world will drop, like untied veil

From before a lady's eyes;

Or, all night read, a finished tale

That in the morning dies.

III.

Yet not in vain dost thou unroll

The stars, the world, the seas--

A mighty, wonder-painted scroll

Of Patmos mysteries,

Thou mediator 'twixt my soul

And higher things than these!

Thy holy ephod bound on me,

I pass into a seer;

For still in things thou mak'st me see,

The unseen grows more clear;

Still their indwelling Deity

Speaks plainer in mine ear.

Divinely taught the craftsman is

Who waketh wonderings;

Whose web, the nursing chrysalis

Round Psyche's folded wings,

To them transfers the loveliness

Of its inwoven things.

Yet joy when thou shalt cease to beat!--

For a greater heart beats on,

Whose better texture follows fleet

On thy last thread outrun,

With a seamless-woven garment, meet

To clothe a death-born son.

_THE FLOWER-ANGELS_.

Of old, with goodwill from the skies--

God's message to them given--

The angels came, a glad surprise,

And went again to heaven.

But now the angels are grown rare,

Needed no more as then;

Far lowlier messengers can bear

God's goodwill unto men.

Each year, the snowdrops' pallid dawn

Breaks from the earth below;

Light spreads, till, from the dark updrawn,

The noontide roses glow.

The snowdrops first--the dawning gray;

Then out the roses burn!

They speak their word, grow dim--away

To holy dust return.

Of oracles were little dearth,

Should heaven continue dumb;

From lowliest corners of the earth

God's messages will come.

In thy face his we see, O Lord,

And are no longer blind;

Need not so much his rarer word,

In flowers even read his mind.

_TO MY SISTER_,

ON HER TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY.

Old fables are not all a lie

That tell of wondrous birth,

Of Titan children, father Sky,

And mighty mother Earth.

Yea, now are walking on the ground

Sons of the mingled brood;

Yea, now upon the earth are found

Such daughters of the Good.

Earth-born, my sister, thou art still

A daughter of the sky;

Oh, climb for ever up the hill

Of thy divinity!

To thee thy mother Earth is sweet,

Her face to thee is fair;

But thou, a goddess incomplete,

Must climb the starry stair.

II.

Wouldst thou the holy hill ascend,

Wouldst see the Father's face?

To all his other children bend,

And take the lowest place.

Be like a cottage on a moor,

A covert from the wind,

With burning fire and open door,

And welcome free and kind.

Thus humbly doing on the earth

The things the earthly scorn,

Thou shalt declare the lofty birth

Of all the lowly born.

III.

Be then thy sacred womanhood

A sign upon thee set,

A second baptism--understood--

For what thou must be yet.

For, cause and end of all thy strife,

And unrest as thou art,

Still stings thee to a higher life

The Father at thy heart.

_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.

_WILD FLOWERS_.

Content Primroses,

With hearts at rest in your thick leaves' soft care,

Peeping as from his mother's lap the child

Who courts shy shelter from his own open air!--

Hanging Harebell,

Whose blue heaven to no wanderer ever closes,

Though thou still lookest earthward from thy domed cell!--

Fluttering-wild

Anemone, so well

Named of the Wind, to whom thou, fettered-free,

Yieldest thee, helpless--wilfully,

With _Take me or leave me,

Sweet Wind, I am thine own Anemone_!--

Thirsty Arum, ever dreaming

Of lakes in wildernesses gleaming!--

Fire-winged Pimpernel,

Communing with some hidden well,

And secrets with the sun-god holding,

At fixed hour folding and unfolding!--

How is it with you, children all,

When human children on you fall,

Gather you in eager haste,

Spoil your plenty with their waste--

Fill and fill their dropping hands?

Feel you hurtfully disgraced

By their injurious demands?

Do you know them from afar,

Shuddering at their merry hum,

Growing faint as near they come?

Blind and deaf they think you are--

Is it only ye are dumb?

You alive at least, I think,

Trembling almost on the brink

Of our lonely consciousness:

If it be so,

Take this comfort for your woe,

For the breaking of your rest,

For the tearing in your breast,

For the blotting of the sun,

For the death too soon begun,

For all else beyond redress--

Or what seemeth so to be--

That the children's wonder-springs

Bubble high at sight of you,

Lovely, lowly, common things:

In you more than you they see!

Take this too--that, walking out,

Looking fearlessly about,

Ye rebuke our manhood's doubt,

And our childhood's faith renew;

So that we, with old age nigh,

Seeing you alive and well

Out of winter's crucible,

Hearing you, from graveyard crept,

Tell us that ye only slept--

Think we die not, though we die.

Thus ye die not, though ye die--

Only yield your being up,

Like a nectar-holding cup:

Deaf, ye give to them that hear,

With a greatness lovely-dear;

Blind, ye give to them that see--

Poor, but bounteous royally.

Lowly servants to the higher,

Burning upwards in the fire

Of Nature's endless sacrifice,

In great Life's ascent ye rise,

Leave the lowly earth behind,

Pass into the human mind,

Pass with it up into God,

Whence ye came though through the clod--

Pass, and find yourselves at home

Where but life can go and come;

Where all life is in its nest,

At loving one with holy Best;--

Who knows?--with shadowy, dawning sense

Of a past, age-long somnolence!

_SPRING SONG_.

Days of old,

Ye are not dead, though gone from me;

Ye are not cold,

But like the summer-birds fled o'er some sea.

The sun brings back the swallows fast

O'er the sea;

When he cometh at the last,

The days of old come back to me.

_SUMMER SONG_.

"Murmuring, 'twixt a murmur and moan,

Many a tune in a single tone,

For every ear with a secret true--

The sea-shell wants to whisper to you."

The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 1 · 第 26 / 27 章