The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes - Volume 1 - George MacDonald (digital book reader TXT) 📗

her in his arms ).
I am very glad to have my little girl;
I walked quite fast to come to her again.

Lily .
I do, do love you. Shall I tell you something?
Think I should like to tell you. Tis a dream
That I went into, somewhere in last night.
I was alone-quite;-you were not with me,
So I must tell you. 'Twas a garden, like
That one you took me to, long, long ago,
When the sun was so hot. It was not winter,
But some of the poor leaves were growing tired
With hanging there so long. And some of them
Gave it up quite, and so dropped down and lay
Quiet on the ground. And I was watching them.
I saw one falling-down, down-tumbling down-
Just at the earth-when suddenly it spread
Great wings and flew.-It was a butterfly,
So beautiful with wings, black, red, and white-

[ Laughing heartily .]

I thought it was a crackly, withered leaf.
Away it flew! I don't know where it went.
And so I thought, I have a story now
To tell dear father when he comes to Lily.

Julian .
Thank you, my child; a very pretty dream.
But I am tired-will you go find another-
Another dream somewhere in sleep for me?

Lily .
O yes, I will.-Perhaps I cannot find one.

[ He lays her down to sleep; then sits musing .]

Julian .
What shall I do to give it life again?
To make it spread its wings before it fall,
And lie among the dead things of the earth?

Lily .
I cannot go to sleep. Please, father, sing
The song about the little thirsty lily.

[JULIAN sings .]


SONG.

Little white Lily
Sat by a stone,
Drooping and waiting
Till the sun shone.
Little white Lily
Sunshine has fed;
Little white Lily
Is lifting her head.

Little white Lily
Said, "It is good:
Little white Lily's
Clothing and food!
Little white Lily
Drest like a bride!
Shining with whiteness,
And crowned beside!"

Little white Lily
Droopeth in pain,
Waiting and waiting
For the wet rain.
Little white Lily
Holdeth her cup;
Rain is fast falling,
And filling it up.

Little white Lily
Said, "Good again,
When I am thirsty
To have nice rain!
Now I am stronger,
Now I am cool;
Heat cannot burn me,
My veins are so full!"

Little white Lily
Smells very sweet:
On her head sunshine,
Rain at her feet.
"Thanks to the sunshine!
Thanks to the rain!
Little white Lily
Is happy again!"

[ He is silent for a moment; then goes and looks at her .]

Julian .
She is asleep, the darling! Easily
Is Sleep enticed to brood on childhood's heart.
Gone home unto thy Father for the night!

[ He returns to his seat .]

I have grown common to her. It is strange-
This commonness-that, as a blight, eats up
All the heart's springing corn and promised fruit.

[ Looking round .]

This room is very common: everything
Has such a well-known look of nothing in it;
And yet when first I called it hers and mine,
There was a mystery inexhaustible
About each trifle on the chimney-shelf:
The gilding now is nearly all worn off.
Even she, the goddess of the wonder-world,
Seems less mysterious and worshipful:
No wonder I am common in her eyes.
Alas! what must I think? Is this the true?
Was that the false that was so beautiful?
Was it a rosy mist that wrapped it round?
Or was love to the eyes as opium,
Making all things more beauteous than they were?
And can that opium do more than God
To waken beauty in a human brain?
Is this the real, the cold, undraperied truth-
A skeleton admitted as a guest
At life's loud feast, wearing a life-like mask?
No, no; my heart would die if I believed it.
A blighting fog uprises with the days,
False, cold, dull, leaden, gray. It clings about
The present, far dragging like a robe; but ever
Forsakes the past, and lets its hues shine out:
On past and future pours the light of heaven.
The Commonplace is of the present mind.
The Lovely is the True. The Beautiful
Is what God made. Men from whose narrow bosoms
The great child-heart has withered, backward look
To their first-love, and laugh, and call it folly,
A mere delusion to which youth is subject,
As childhood to diseases. They know better!
And proud of their denying, tell the youth,
On whom the wonder of his being shines,
That will be over with him by and by:
"I was so when a boy-look at me now!"
Youth, be not one of them, but love thy love.
So with all worship of the high and good,
And pure and beautiful. These men are wiser!
Their god, Experience, but their own decay;
Their wisdom but the gray hairs gathered on them.
Yea, some will mourn and sing about their loss,
And for the sake of sweet sounds cherish it,
Nor yet believe that it was more than seeming.
But he in whom the child's heart hath not died,
But grown a man's heart, loveth yet the Past;
Believes in all its beauty; knows the hours
Will melt the mist; and that, although this day
Cast but a dull stone on Time's heaped-up cairn,
A morning light will break one morn and draw
The hidden glories of a thousand hues
Out from its diamond-depths and ruby-spots
And sapphire-veins, unseen, unknown, before.
Far in the future lies his refuge. Time
Is God's, and all its miracles are his;
And in the Future he overtakes the Past,
Which was a prophecy of times to come:
There lie great flashing stars, the same that shone
In childhood's laughing heaven; there lies the wonder
In which the sun went down and moon arose;
The joy with which the meadows opened out
Their daisies to the warming sun of spring;
Yea, all the inward glory, ere cold fear
Froze, or doubt shook the mirror of his soul:
To reach it, he must climb the present slope
Of this day's duty-here he would not rest.
But all the time the glory is at hand,
Urging and guiding-only o'er its face
Hangs ever, pledge and screen, the bridal veil:
He knows the beauty radiant underneath;
He knows that God who is the living God,
The God of living things, not of the dying,
Would never give his child, for God-born love,
A cloud-made phantom, fading in the sun.
Faith vanishes in sight; the cloudy veil
Will melt away, destroyed of inward light.

If thy young heart yet lived, my Lilia, thou
And I might, as two children, hand in hand,
Go home unto our Father.-I believe
It only sleeps, and may be wakened yet.


SCENE X.- Julian's room. Christmas Day; early morn . JULIAN.

Julian .
The light comes feebly, slowly, to the world
On this one day that blesses all the year,
Just as it comes on any other day:
A feeble child he came, yet not the less
Brought godlike childhood to the aged earth,
Where nothing now is common any more.
All things had hitherto proclaimed God:
The wide spread air; the luminous mist that hid
The far horizon of the fading sea;
The low persistent music evermore
Flung down upon the sands, and at the base
Of the great rocks that hold it as a cup;
All things most common; the furze, now golden, now
Opening dark pods in music to the heat
Of the high summer-sun at afternoon;
The lone black tarn upon the round hill-top,
O'er which the gray clouds brood like rising smoke,
Sending its many rills, o'erarched and hid,
Singing like children down the rocky sides;-
Where shall I find the most unnoticed thing,
For that sang God with all its voice of song?
But men heard not, they knew not God in these;
To their strange speech unlistening ears were strange;
For with a stammering tongue and broken words,
With mingled falsehoods and denials loud,
Man witnessed God unto his fellow man:
How then himself the voice of Nature hear?
Or how himself he heeded, when, the leader,
He in the chorus sang a discord vile?
When prophet lies, how shall the people preach?