Полная версия
Купить и скачатьДобавить В библиотеку
The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 1
Автор:
Жанр:
Год написания книги: 2018
Тэги:
Настройки чтения
Размер шрифта
Высота строк
Поля
THE DISCIPLE
DEDICATION
To all who fain Would keep the grain, And cast the husk away— That it may feed The living seed, And serve it with decay— I offer this dim story Whose clouds crack into glory.THE DISCIPLE
I
The times are changed, and gone the day When the high heavenly land, Though unbeheld, quite near them lay, And men could understand. The dead yet find it, who, when here, Did love it more than this; They enter in, are filled with cheer, And pain expires in bliss. All glorious gleams the blessed land!— O God, forgive, I pray: The heart thou holdest in thy hand Loves more this sunny day! I see the hundred thousand wait Around the radiant throne: Ah, what a dreary, gilded state! What crowds of beings lone! I do not care for singing psalms; I tire of good men's talk; To me there is no joy in palms, Or white-robed, solemn walk. I love to hear the wild winds meet, The wild old winds at night; To watch the cold stars flash and beat, The feathery snow alight. I love all tales of valiant men, Of women good and fair: If I were rich and strong, ah, then I would do something rare! But for thy temple in the sky, Its pillars strong and white— I cannot love it, though I try, And long with all my might. Sometimes a joy lays hold on me, And I am speechless then; Almost a martyr I could be, To join the holy men. Straightway my heart is like a clod, My spirit wrapt in doubt:— A pillar in the house of God, And never more go out! No more the sunny, breezy morn; All gone the glowing noon; No more the silent heath forlorn, The wan-faced waning moon! My God, this heart will never burn, Must never taste thy joy! Even Jesus' face is calm and stern: I am a hapless boy! * * * * *II
I read good books. My heart despairs. In vain I try to dress My soul in feelings like to theirs— These men of holiness. My thoughts, like doves, abroad I fling Into a country fair: Wind-baffled, back, with tired wing, They to my ark repair. Or comes a sympathetic thrill With long-departed saint, A feeble dawn, without my will, Of feelings old and quaint, As of a church's holy night, With low-browed chapels round, Where common sunshine dares not light On the too sacred ground,— One glance at sunny fields of grain, One shout of child at play— A merry melody drives amain The one-toned chant away! My spirit will not enter here To haunt the holy gloom; I gaze into a mirror mere, A mirror, not a room. And as a bird against the pane Will strike, deceived sore, I think to enter, but remain Outside the closed door. Oh, it will call for many a sigh If it be what it claims— This book, so unlike earth and sky, Unlike man's hopes and aims!— To me a desert parched and bare— In which a spirit broods Whose wisdom I would gladly share At cost of many goods! * * * * *III
O hear me, God! O give me joy Such as thy chosen feel; Have pity on a wretched boy; My heart is hard as steel. I have no care for what is good; Thyself I do not love; I relish not this Bible-food; My heaven is not above. Thou wilt not hear: I come no more; Thou heedest not my woe. With sighs and tears my heart is sore. Thou comest not: I go. * * * * *IV
Once more I kneel. The earth is dark, And darker yet the air; If light there be, 'tis but a spark Amid a world's despair— One hopeless hope there yet may be A God somewhere to hear; The God to whom I bend my knee— A God with open ear. I know that men laugh still to scorn The grief that is my lot; Such wounds, they say, are hardly borne, But easily forgot. What matter that my sorrows rest On ills which men despise! More hopeless heaves my aching breast Than when a prophet sighs. AEons of griefs have come and gone— My grief is yet my mark. The sun sets every night, yet none Sees therefore in the dark. There's love enough upon the earth, And beauty too, they say: There may be plenty, may be dearth, I care not any way. The world hath melted from my sight; No grace in life is left; I cry to thee with all my might, Because I am bereft. In vain I cry. The earth is dark, And darker yet the air; Of light there trembles now no spark In my lost soul's despair. * * * * *V
I sit and gaze from window high Down on the noisy street: No part in this great coil have I, No fate to go and meet. My books unopened long have lain; In class I am all astray: The questions growing in my brain, Demand and have their way. Knowledge is power, the people cry; Grave men the lure repeat: After some rarer thing I sigh, That makes the pulses beat. Old truths, new facts, they preach aloud— Their tones like wisdom fall: One sunbeam glancing on a cloud Hints things beyond them all. * * * * *VI
But something is not right within; High hopes are far gone by. Was it a bootless aim—to win Sight of a loftier sky? They preach men should not faint, but pray, And seek until they find; But God is very far away, Nor is his countenance kind. Yet every night my father prayed, Withdrawing from the throng! Some answer must have come that made His heart so high and strong! Once more I'll seek the God of men, Redeeming childhood's vow.— —I failed with bitter weeping then, And fail cold-hearted now!VII
Why search for God? A man I tread This old life-bearing earth; High thoughts awake and lift my head— In me they have their birth. The preacher says a Christian must Do all the good he can:— I must be noble, true, and just, Because I am a man! They say a man must watch, and keep Lamp burning, garments white, Else he shall sit without and weep When Christ comes home at night:— A man must hold his honour free, His conscience must not stain, Or soil, I say, the dignity Of heart and blood and brain! Yes, I say well—said words are cheap! For action man was born! What praise will my one talent reap? What grapes are on my thorn? Have high words kept me pure enough? In evil have I no part? Hath not my bosom "perilous stuff That weighs upon the heart"? I am not that which I do praise; I do not that I say; I sit a talker in the ways, A dreamer in the day!VIII
The preacher's words are true, I know— That man may lose his life; That every man must downward go Without the upward strife. 'Twere well my soul should cease to roam, Should seek and have and hold! It may be there is yet a home In that religion old. Again I kneel, again I pray: Wilt thou be God to me? Wilt thou give ear to what I say, And lift me up to thee? Lord, is it true? Oh, vision high! The clouds of heaven dispart; An opening depth of loving sky Looks down into my heart! There is a home wherein to dwell— The very heart of light! Thyself my sun immutable, My moon and stars all night! I thank thee, Lord. It must be so, Its beauty is so good. Up in my heart thou mad'st it go, And I have understood. The clouds return. The common day Falls on me like a No; But I have seen what might be—may, And with a hope I go.IX
I am a stranger in the land; It gives no welcome dear; Its lilies bloom not for my hand, Its roses for my cheer. The sunshine used to make me glad, But now it knows me not; This weight of brightness makes me sad— It isolates a blot. I am forgotten by the hills, And by the river's play; No look of recognition thrills The features of the day. Then only am I moved to song, When down the darkening street, While vanishes the scattered throng, The driving rain I meet. The rain pours down. My thoughts awake, Like flowers that languished long; From bare cold hills the night-winds break, From me the unwonted song.X
I read the Bible with my eyes, But hardly with my brain; Should this the meaning recognize, My heart yet reads in vain. These words of promise and of woe Seem but a tinkling sound; As through an ancient tomb I go, With dust-filled urns around. Or, as a sadly searching child, Afar from love and home, Sits in an ancient chamber, piled With scroll and musty tome, So I, in these epistles old From men of heavenly care, Find all the thoughts of other mould Than I can love or share. No sympathy with mine they show, Their world is not the same; They move me not with joy or woe, They touch me not with blame. I hear no word that calls my life, Or owns my struggling powers; Those ancient ages had their strife, But not a strife like ours. Oh, not like men they move and speak, Those pictures in old panes! They alter not their aspect meek For all the winds and rains! Their thoughts are full of figures strange, Of Jewish forms and rites: A world of air and sea I range, Of mornings and of nights!XI
I turn me to the gospel-tale:— My hope is faint with fear That hungriest search will not avail To find a refuge here. A misty wind blows bare and rude From dead seas of the past; And through the clouds that halt and brood, Dim dawns a shape at last: A sad worn man who bows his face, And treads a frightful path, To save an abject hopeless race From an eternal wrath. Kind words he speaks—but all the time As from a formless height To which no human foot can climb— Half-swathed in ancient night. Nay, sometimes, and to gentle heart, Unkind words from him go! Surely it is no saviour's part To speak to women so! Much rather would I refuge take With Mary, dear to me, To whom that rough hard speech he spake— What have I to do with thee? Surely I know men tenderer, Women of larger soul, Who need no prayer their hearts to stir, Who always would make whole! Oftenest he looks a weary saint, Embalmed in pallid gleam; Listless and sad, without complaint, Like dead man in a dream. And, at the best, he is uplift A spectacle, a show:— The worth of such an outworn gift I know too much to know! How find the love to pay my debt?— He leads me from the sun!— Yet it is hard men should forget A good deed ever done!— Forget that he, to foil a curse, Did, on that altar-hill, Sun of a sunless universe, Hang dying, patient, still! But what is He, whose pardon slow At so much blood is priced?— If such thou art, O Jove, I go To the Promethean Christ!XII
A word within says I am to blame, And therefore must confess; Must call my doing by its name, And so make evil less. "I could not his false triumph bear, For he was first in wrong." "Thy own ill-doings are thy care, His to himself belong." "To do it right, my heart should own Some sorrow for the ill." "Plain, honest words will half atone, And they are in thy will." The struggle comes. Evil or I Must gain the victory now. I am unmoved and yet would try: O God, to thee I bow. The skies are brass; there falls no aid; No wind of help will blow. But I bethink me:—I am made A man: I rise and go.XIII
To Christ I needs must come, they say; Who went to death for me: I turn aside; I come, I pray, My unknown God, to thee. He is afar; the story old Is blotted, worn, and dim; With thee, O God, I can be bold— I cannot pray to him. Pray! At the word a cloudy grief Around me folds its pall: Nothing I have to call belief! How can I pray at all? I know not if a God be there To heed my crying sore; If in the great world anywhere An ear keeps open door! An unborn faith I will not nurse, Pursue an endless task; Loud out into its universe My soul shall call and ask! Is there no God—earth, sky, and sea Are but a chaos wild! Is there a God—I know that he Must hear his calling child!XIV
I kneel. But all my soul is dumb With hopeless misery: Is he a friend who will not come, Whose face I must not see? I do not think of broken laws, Of judge's damning word; My heart is all one ache, because I call and am not heard. A cry where there is none to hear, Doubles the lonely pain; Returns in silence on the ear, In torture on the brain. No look of love a smile can bring, No kiss wile back the breath To cold lips: I no answer wring From this great face of death.XV
Yet sometimes when the agony Dies of its own excess, A dew-like calm descends on me, A shadow of tenderness; A sense of bounty and of grace, A cool air in my breast, As if my soul were yet a place Where peace might one day rest. God! God! I say, and cry no more, But rise, and think to stand Unwearied at the closed door Till comes the opening hand.XVI
But is it God?—Once more the fear Of No God loads my breath: Amid a sunless atmosphere I fight again with death. Such rest may be like that which lulls The man who fainting lies: His bloodless brain his spirit dulls, Draws darkness o'er his eyes. But even such sleep, my heart responds, May be the ancient rest Rising released from bodily bonds, And flowing unreprest. The o'ertasked will falls down aghast In individual death; God puts aside the severed past, Breathes-in a primal breath. For how should torture breed a calm? Can death to life give birth? No labour can create the balm That soothes the sleeping earth! I yet will hope the very One Whose love is life in me, Did, when my strength was overdone, Inspire serenity.XVII
When the hot sun's too urgent might Hath shrunk the tender leaf, Water comes sliding down the night, And makes its sorrow brief. When poet's heart is in eclipse, A glance from childhood's eye, A smile from passing maiden's lips, Will clear a glowing sky. Might not from God such influence come A dying hope to lift? Might he not send to poor heart some Unmediated gift? My child lies moaning, lost in dreams, Abandoned, sore dismayed; Her fancy's world with horror teems, Her soul is much afraid: I lay my hand upon her breast, Her moaning dies away; She does not wake, but, lost in rest, Sleeps on into the day. And when my heart with soft release Grows calm as summer-sea, Shall I not hope the God of peace Hath laid his hand on me?XVIII
But why from thought should fresh doubt start— An ever-lengthening cord? Might he not make my troubled heart Right sure it was the Lord? God will not let a smaller boon Hinder the coming best; A granted sign might all too soon Rejoice thee into rest. Yet could not any sign, though grand As hosts of fire about, Though lovely as a sunset-land, Secure thy soul from doubt. A smile from one thou lovedst well Gladdened thee all the day; The doubt which all day far did dwell Came home with twilight gray. For doubt will come, will ever come, Though signs be perfect good, Till heart to heart strike doubting dumb, And both are understood.
