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

/> Came the bright maiden, high upon her horse.
Will started all awake, passive no more,
And, necromantic sage, the apparition
That came unbid, commanded to abide.

Gathered around her form his brooding thoughts:
How had she fared, spinning her history
Into a psyche-cradle? With what wings
Would she come forth to greet the aeonian summer?
Glistening with feathery dust of silver? or
Dull red, and seared with spots of black ingrained?
"I know," he said, "some women fail of life!
The rose hath shed her leaves: is she a rose?"

The fount of possibilities began
To gurgle, threatful, underneath the thought:
Anon the geyser-column raging rose;-
For purest souls sometimes have direst fears
In ghost-hours when the shadow of the earth
Is cast on half her children, and the sun
Is busy giving daylight to the rest.

"Oh, God!" he cried, "if she be such as those!-
Angels in the eyes of poet-boys, who still
Fancy the wavings of invisible wings,
But, in their own familiar, chamber-thoughts,
Common as clay, and of the trodden earth!-
It cannot, cannot be! She is of God!-
And yet things lovely perish! higher life
Gives deeper death! fair gifts make fouler faults!-
Women themselves-I dare not think the rest!"
Such thoughts went walking up and down his soul
But found at last a spot wherein to rest,
Building a resolution for the day.

The next day, and the next, he was too worn
To clothe intent in body of a deed.
A cold dry wind blew from the unkindly east,
Making him feel as he had come to the earth
Before God's spirit moved on the water's face,
To make it ready for him.

But the third
Morning rose radiant. A genial wind
Rippled the blue air 'neath the golden sun,
And brought glad summer-tidings from the south.

He lay now in his father's room; for there
The southern sun poured all the warmth he had.
His rays fell on the fire, alive with flames,
And turned it ghostly pale, and would have slain-
Even as the sunshine of the higher life,
Quenching the glow of this, leaves but a coal.
He rose and sat him down 'twixt sun and fire;
Two lives fought in him for the mastery;
And half from each forth flowed the written stream
"Lady, I owe thee much. Stay not to look
Upon my name: I write it, but I date
From the churchyard, where it shall lie in peace,
Thou reading it. Thou know'st me not at all;
Nor dared I write, but death is crowning me
Thy equal. If my boldness yet offend,
Lo, pure in my intent, I am with the ghosts;
Where when thou comest, thou hast already known
God equal makes at first, and Death at last."

"But pardon, lady. Ere I had begun,
My thoughts moved toward thee with a gentle flow
That bore a depth of waters: when I took
My pen to write, they rushed into a gulf,
Precipitate and foamy. Can it be
That Death who humbles all hath made me proud?"

"Lady, thy loveliness hath walked my brain,
As if I were thy heritage bequeathed
From many sires; yet only from afar
I have worshipped thee-content to know the vision
Had lifted me above myself who saw,
And ta'en my angel nigh thee in thy heaven.
Thy beauty, lady, hath overflowed, and made
Another being beautiful, beside,
With virtue to aspire and be itself.
Afar as angels or the sainted dead,
Yet near as loveliness can haunt a man,
Thy form hath put on each revealing dress
Of circumstance and history, high or low,
In which, from any tale of selfless life,
Essential womanhood hath shone on me."

"Ten years have passed away since the first time,
Which was the last, I saw thee. What have these
Made or unmade in thee?-I ask myself.
O lovely in my memory! art thou
As lovely in thyself? Thy glory then
Was what God made thee: art thou such indeed?
Forgive my boldness, lady-I am dead:
The dead may cry, their voices are so small."

"I have a prayer to make thee-hear the dead.
Lady, for God's sake be as beautiful
As that white form that dwelleth in my heart;
Yea, better still, as that ideal Pure
That waketh in thee, when thou prayest God,
Or helpest thy poor neighbour. For myself
I pray. For if I die and find that she,
My woman-glory, lives in common air,
Is not so very radiant after all,
My sad face will afflict the calm-eyed ghosts,
Unused to see such rooted sorrow there.
With palm to palm my kneeling ghost implores
Thee, living lady-justify my faith
In womanhood's white-handed nobleness,
And thee, its revelation unto me."

"But I bethink me:-If thou turn thy thoughts
Upon thyself, even for that great sake
Of purity and conscious whiteness' self,
Thou wilt but half succeed. The other half
Is to forget the former, yea, thyself,
Quenching thy moonlight in the blaze of day,
Turning thy being full unto thy God.
Be thou in him a pure, twice holy child,
Doing the right with sweet unconsciousness-
Having God in thee, thy completing soul."

"Lady, I die; the Father holds me up.
It is not much to thee that I should die;
It may be much to know he holds me up."

"I thank thee, lady, for the gentle look
Which crowned me from thine eyes ten years ago,
Ere, clothed in nimbus of the setting sun,
Thee from my dazzled eyes thy horse did bear,
Proud of his burden. My dull tongue was mute-
I was a fool before thee; but my silence
Was the sole homage possible to me then:
That now I speak, and fear not, is thy gift.
The same sweet look be possible to thee
For evermore! I bless thee with thine own,
And say farewell, and go into my grave-
No, to the sapphire heaven of all my hopes."

Followed his name in full, and then the name
Of the green churchyard where his form should lie.

Back to his couch he crept, weary, and said:
"O God, I am but an attempt at life!
Sleep falls again ere I am full awake.
Light goeth from me in the morning hour.
I have seen nothing clearly; felt no thrill
Of pure emotion, save in dreams, ah-dreams!
The high Truth has but flickered in my soul-
Even at such times, in wide blue midnight hours,
When, dawning sudden on my inner world,
New stars came forth, revealing unknown depths,
New heights of silence, quelling all my sea,
And for a moment I saw formless fact,
And knew myself a living lonely thought,
Isled in the hyaline of Truth alway!
I have not reaped earth's harvest, O my God;
Have gathered but a few poor wayside flowers,
Harebells, red poppies, daisies, eyebrights blue-
Gathered them by the way, for comforting!
Have I aimed proudly, therefore aimed too low,
Striving for something visible in my thought,
And not the unseen thing hid far in thine?
Make me content to be a primrose-flower
Among thy nations, so the fair truth, hid
In the sweet primrose, come awake in me,
And I rejoice, an individual soul,
Reflecting thee-as truly then divine
As if I towered the angel of the sun.
Once, in a southern eve, a glowing worm
Gave me a keener joy than the heaven of stars:
Thou camest in the worm nearer me then!
Nor do I think, were I that green delight,
I would change to be the shadowy evening star.
Ah, make me, Father, anything thou wilt,
So be thou will it! I am safe with thee.
I laugh exulting. Make me something, God-
Clear, sunny, veritable purity
Of mere existence, in thyself content.
And seeking no compare. Sure I have reaped
Earth's harvest if I find this holy death!-
Now I am ready; take me when thou wilt."

He laid the letter in his desk, with seal
And superscription. When his sister came,
He told her where to find it-afterwards.

As the slow eve, through paler, darker shades,
Insensibly declines, until at last
The lordly day is but a memory,
So died he. In the hush of noon he died.
The sun shone on-why should he not shine on?
Glad summer noises rose from all the land;
The love of God lay warm on hill and plain:
'Tis well to die in summer.

When the breath,
After a hopeless pause, returned no more,
The father fell upon his knees, and said:
"O God, I thank thee; it is over now!
Through the sore time thy hand has led him well.
Lord, let me follow soon, and be at rest."
Therewith he rose, and comforted the maid,
Who in her brother had lost the pride of life,
And wept as all her heaven were only rain.

Of the loved lady, little more I know.
I know not if, when she had read his words,
She rose in haste, and to her chamber went,
And shut the door; nor if, when she came forth,
A dawn of holier purpose gleamed across
The sadness of her brow. But this I