The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 1

XIX

  I shall behold him, one day, nigh.       Assailed with glory keen,   My eyes will open wide, and I       Shall see as I am seen.   Of nothing can my heart be sure       Except the highest, best   When God I see with vision pure,       That sight will be my rest.   Forward I look with longing eye,       And still my hope renew;   Backward, and think that from the sky       Did come that falling dew.

XX

  But if a vision should unfold       That I might banish fear;   That I, the chosen, might be bold,       And walk with upright cheer;   My heart would cry: But shares my race       In this great love of thine?   I pray, put me not in good case       Where others lack and pine.   Nor claim I thus a loving heart       That for itself is mute:   In such love I desire no part       As reaches not my root.   But if my brothers thou dost call       As children to thy knee,   Thou givest me my being's all,       Thou sayest child to me.   If thou to me alone shouldst give,       My heart were all beguiled:   It would not be because I live,       And am my Father's child!

XXI

  As little comfort would it bring,       Amid a throng to pass;   To stand with thousands worshipping       Upon the sea of glass;   To know that, of a sinful world,       I one was saved as well;   My roll of ill with theirs upfurled,       And cast in deepest hell;   That God looked bounteously on one,       Because on many men;   As shone Judea's earthly sun       On all the healed ten.   No; thou must be a God to me       As if but me were none;   I such a perfect child to thee       As if thou hadst but one.

XXII

  Oh, then, my Father, hast thou not       A blessing just for me?   Shall I be, barely, not forgot?—       Never come home to thee?   Hast thou no care for this one child,       This thinking, living need?   Or is thy countenance only mild,       Thy heart not love indeed?   For some eternal joy I pray,       To make me strong and free;   Yea, such a friend I need alway       As thou alone canst be.   Is not creative infinitude       Able, in every man,   To turn itself to every mood       Since God man's life began?   Art thou not each man's God—his own,       With secret words between,   As thou and he lived all alone,       Insphered in silence keen?   Ah, God, my heart is not the same       As any heart beside;   My pain is different, and my blame,       My pity and my pride!   My history thou know'st, my thoughts       Different from other men's;   Thou knowest all the sheep and goats       That mingle in my pens.   Thou knowest I a love might bring       By none beside me due;   One praiseful song at least might sing       Which could not but be new.

XXIII

  Nor seek I thus to stand apart,       In aught my kind above;   My neighbour, ah, my troubled heart       Must rest ere thee it love!   If God love not, I have no care,       No power to love, no hope.   What is life here or anywhere?       Or why with darkness cope?   I scorn my own love's every sign,       So feeble, selfish, low,   If his love give no pledge that mine       Shall one day perfect grow.   But if I knew Thy love even such,       As tender and intense   As, tested by its human touch,       Would satisfy my sense   Of what a father never was      But should be to his son,   My heart would leap for joy, because       My rescue was begun.   Oh then my love, by thine set free,       Would overflow thy men;   In every face my heart would see       God shining out again!   There are who hold high festival       And at the board crown Death:   I am too weak to live at all       Except I breathe thy breath.   Show me a love that nothing bates,       Absolute, self-severe—   Even at Gehenna's prayerless gates       I should not "taint with fear."

XXIV

  I cannot brook that men should say—       Nor this for gospel take—   That thou wilt hear me if I pray       Asking for Jesus' sake.   For love to him is not to me,       And cannot lift my fate;   The love is not that is not free,       Perfect, immediate.   Love is salvation: life without       No moment can endure.   Those sheep alone go in and out       Who know thy love is pure.

XXV

  But what if God requires indeed,       For cause yet unrevealed,   Assent to one fixed form of creed,       Such as I cannot yield?   Has God made for Christ's sake a test—       To take or leave the crust,   That only he may have the best       Who licks the serpent-dust?   No, no; the words I will not say       With the responding folk;   I at his feet a heart would lay,       Not shoulders for a yoke.   He were no lord of righteousness       Who subjects such would gain   As yield their birthright for a mess       Of liberty from pain!   "And wilt thou bargain then with Him?"       The priest makes answer high.   'Tis thou, priest, makest the sky dim:       My hope is in the sky.

XXVI

  But is my will alive, awake?       The one God will not heed   If in my lips or hands I take       A half-word or half-deed.   Hour after hour I sit and dream,       Amazed in outwardness;   The powers of things that only seem       The things that are oppress;   Till in my soul some discord sounds,       Till sinks some yawning lack;   Then turn I from life's rippling rounds,       And unto thee come back.   Thou seest how poor a thing am I,       Yet hear, whate'er I be;   Despairing of my will, I cry,       Be God enough to me.   My spirit, low, irresolute,       I cast before thy feet;   And wait, while even prayer is mute,       For what thou judgest meet.

XXVII

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

XXVIII

  What is his will?—that I may go       And do it, in the hope   That light will rise and spread and grow,       As deed enlarges scope.   I need not search the sacred book       To find my duty clear;   Scarce in my bosom need I look,       It lies so very near.   Henceforward I must watch the door       Of word and action too;   There's one thing I must do no more,       Another I must do.   Alas, these are such little things!       No glory in their birth!   Doubt from their common aspect springs—       If God will count them worth.   But here I am not left to choose,       My duty is my lot;   And weighty things will glory lose       If small ones are forgot.   I am not worthy high things yet;       I'll humbly do my own;   Good care of sheep may so beget       A fitness for the throne.   Ah fool! why dost thou reason thus?       Ambition's very fool!   Through high and low, each glorious,       Shines God's all-perfect rule.   'Tis God I need, not rank in good:       'Tis Life, not honour's meed;   With him to fill my every mood,       I am content indeed.

XXIX

  Will do: shall know: I feel the force,       The fullness of the word;   His holy boldness held its course,       Claiming divine accord.   What if, as yet, I have never seen       The true face of the Man!   The named notion may have been       A likeness vague and wan;   A thing of such unblended hues       As, on his chamber wall,   The humble peasant gladly views,       And Jesus Christ doth call.   The story I did never scan       With vision calm and strong;   Have never tried to see the Man,       The many words among.   Pictures there are that do not please       With any sweet surprise,   But gain the heart by slow degrees       Until they feast the eyes;   And if I ponder what they call       The gospel of God's grace,   Through mists that slowly melt and fall       May dawn a human face.   What face? Oh, heart-uplifting thought,       That face may dawn on me   Which Moses on the mountain sought,       God would not let him see!

XXX

  All faint at first, as wrapt in veil       Of Sinai's cloudy dark,   But dawning as I read the tale,       I slow discern and mark   A gracious, simple, truthful man,       Who walks the earth erect,   Nor stoops his noble head to one       From fear or false respect;   Who seeks to climb no high estate,       No low consent secure,   With high and low serenely great,       Because his love is pure.   Oh not alone, high o'er our reach,       Our joys and griefs beyond!   To him 'tis joy divine to teach       Where human hearts respond;   And grief divine it was to him       To see the souls that slept:   "How often, O Jerusalem!"       He said, and gazed, and wept.   Love was his very being's root,       And healing was its flower;   Love, human love, its stem and fruit,       Its gladness and its power.   Life of high God, till then unseen!       Undreamt-of glorious show!   Glad, faithful, childlike, love-serene!—       How poor am I! how low!

XXXI

  As in a living well I gaze,       Kneeling upon its brink:   What are the very words he says?       What did the one man think?   I find his heart was all above;       Obedience his one thought;   Reposing in his father's love,       His father's will he sought. * * * * *

XXXII

  Years have passed o'er my broken plan       To picture out a strife,   Where ancient Death, in horror wan,       Faced young and fearing Life.   More of the tale I tell not so—       But for myself would say:   My heart is quiet with what I know,       With what I hope, is gay.   And where I cannot set my faith,       Unknowing or unwise,   I say "If this be what he saith,       Here hidden treasure lies."   Through years gone by since thus I strove,       Thus shadowed out my strife,   While at my history I wove,       Thou wovest in the life.   Through poverty that had no lack       For friends divinely good;   Through pain that not too long did rack,       Through love that understood;   Through light that taught me what to hold       And what to cast away;   Through thy forgiveness manifold,       And things I cannot say,   Here thou hast brought me—able now       To kiss thy garment's hem,   Entirely to thy will to bow,       And trust thee even for them   Who in the darkness and the mire       Walk with rebellious feet,   Loose trailing, Lo, their soiled attire       For heavenly floor unmeet!   Lord Jesus Christ, I know not how—       With this blue air, blue sea,   This yellow sand, that grassy brow,       All isolating me—   Thy thoughts to mine themselves impart,       My thoughts to thine draw near;   But thou canst fill who mad'st my heart,       Who gav'st me words must hear.   Thou mad'st the hand with which I write,       The eye that watches slow   Through rosy gates that rosy light       Across thy threshold go;   Those waves that bend in golden spray,       As if thy foot they bore:   I think I know thee, Lord, to-day,       Shall know thee evermore.   I know thy father thine and mine:       Thou the great fact hast bared:   Master, the mighty words are thine—       Such I had never dared!   Lord, thou hast much to make me yet—       Thy father's infant still:   Thy mind, Son, in my bosom set,       That I may grow thy will.   My soul with truth clothe all about,       And I shall question free:   The man that feareth, Lord, to doubt,       In that fear doubteth thee.

THE GOSPEL WOMEN

I.

THE MOTHER MARY

I

  Mary, to thee the heart was given   For infant hand to hold,   And clasp thus, an eternal heaven,   The great earth in its fold.   He seized the world with tender might   By making thee his own;   Thee, lowly queen, whose heavenly height   Was to thyself unknown.   He came, all helpless, to thy power,   For warmth, and love, and birth;   In thy embraces, every hour,   He grew into the earth.   Thine was the grief, O mother high,   Which all thy sisters share   Who keep the gate betwixt the sky   And this our lower air;   But unshared sorrows, gathering slow,   Will rise within thy heart,   Strange thoughts which like a sword will go   Thorough thy inward part.   For, if a woman bore a son   That was of angel brood,   Who lifted wings ere day was done,   And soared from where she stood,   Wild grief would rave on love's high throne;   She, sitting in the door,   All day would cry: "He was my own,   And now is mine no more!"   So thou, O Mary, years on years,   From child-birth to the cross,   Wast filled with yearnings, filled with fears,   Keen sense of love and loss.   His childish thoughts outsoared thy reach;   His godlike tenderness   Would sometimes seem, in human speech,   To thee than human less.   Strange pangs await thee, mother mild,   A sorer travail-pain;   Then will the spirit of thy child   Be born in thee again.   Till then thou wilt forebode and dread;   Loss will be still thy fear—   Till he be gone, and, in his stead,   His very self appear.   For, when thy son hath reached his goal,   And vanished from the earth,   Soon wilt thou find him in thy soul,   A second, holier birth.

II

  Ah, there he stands! With wondering face   Old men surround the boy;   The solemn looks, the awful place   Bestill the mother's joy.   In sweet reproach her gladness hid,   Her trembling voice says—low,   Less like the chiding than the chid—   "How couldst thou leave us so?"   But will her dear heart understand   The answer that he gives—   Childlike, eternal, simple, grand,   The law by which he lives?   "Why sought ye me?" Ah, mother dear,   The gulf already opes   That will in thee keep live the fear,   And part thee from thy hopes!   "My father's business—that ye know   I cannot choose but do."   Mother, if he that work forego,   Not long he cares for you.   Creation's harder, better part   Now occupies his hand:   I marvel not the mother's heart   Not yet could understand.

III

  The Lord of life among them rests;   They quaff the merry wine;   They do not know, those wedding guests,   The present power divine.   Believe, on such a group he smiled,   Though he might sigh the while;   Believe not, sweet-souled Mary's child   Was born without a smile.   He saw the pitchers, high upturned,   Their last red drops outpour;   His mother's cheek with triumph burned,   And expectation wore.   He knew the prayer her bosom housed,   He read it in her eyes;   Her hopes in him sad thoughts have roused   Ere yet her words arise.   "They have no wine!" she, halting, said,   Her prayer but half begun;   Her eyes went on, "Lift up thy head,   Show what thou art, my son!"   A vision rose before his eyes,   The cross, the waiting tomb,   The people's rage, the darkened skies,   His unavoided doom:   Ah woman dear, thou must not fret   Thy heart's desire to see!   His hour of honour is not yet—   'Twill come too soon for thee!   His word was dark; his tone was kind;   His heart the mother knew;   His eyes in hers looked deep, and shined;   They gave her heart the cue.   Another, on the word intent,   Had read refusal there;   She heard in it a full consent,   A sweetly answered prayer.   "Whate'er he saith unto you, do."   Out flowed his grapes divine;   Though then, as now, not many knew   Who makes the water wine.

IV

  "He is beside himself!" Dismayed,   His mother, brothers talked:   He from the well-known path had strayed   In which their fathers walked!   With troubled hearts they sought him. Loud   Some one the message bore:—   He stands within, amid a crowd,   They at the open door:—   "Thy mother and thy brothers would   Speak with thee. Lo, they stand   Without and wait thee!" Like a flood   Of sunrise on the land,   A new-born light his face o'erspread;   Out from his eyes it poured;   He lifted up that gracious head,   Looked round him, took the word:   "My mother—brothers—who are they?"   Hearest thou, Mary mild?   This is a sword that well may slay—   Disowned by thy child!   Ah, no! My brothers, sisters, hear—   They are our humble lord's!   O mother, did they wound thy ear?—   We thank him for the words.   "Who are my friends?" Oh, hear him say,   Stretching his hand abroad,   "My mother, sisters, brothers, are they   That do the will of God!"   My brother! Lord of life and me,   If life might grow to this!—   Would it not, brother, sister, be   Enough for all amiss?   Yea, mother, hear him and rejoice:   Thou art his mother still,   But may'st be more—of thy own choice   Doing his Father's will.   Ambition for thy son restrain,   Thy will to God's will bow:   Thy son he shall be yet again.   And twice his mother thou.   O humble man, O faithful son!   That woman most forlorn   Who yet thy father's will hath done,   Thee, son of man, hath born!