The poetical works of George MacDonald Volume I Part 1

The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes.

Volume I.

by George MacDonald.

WITHIN AND WITHOUT:

A Dramatic Poem.

What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather-- With outward maker's force, or like an inward father.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S _Arcadia_.

_Written December and January_, 1850-51.

TO L.P.M.D.

Receive thine own; for I and it are thine.

Thou know'st its story; how for forty days-- Weary with sickness and with social haze, (After thy hands and lips with love divine Had somewhat soothed me, made the glory shine, Though with a watery l.u.s.tre,) more delays Of blessedness forbid--I took my ways Into a solitude, Invention's mine; There thought and wrote, afar, and yet with thee.

Those days gone past, I came, and brought a book; My child, developed since in limb and look.

It came in shining vapours from the sea, And in thy stead sung low sweet songs to me, When the red life-blood labour would not brook.

_May_, 1855.

WITHIN AND WITHOUT

PART I.

Go thou into thy closet; shut thy door; And pray to Him in secret: He will hear.

But think not thou, by one wild bound, to clear The numberless ascensions, more and more, Of starry stairs that must be climbed, before Thou comest to the Father's likeness near, And bendest down to kiss the feet so dear That, step by step, their mounting flights pa.s.sed o'er.

Be thou content if on thy weary need There falls a sense of showers and of the spring; A hope that makes it possible to fling Sickness aside, and go and do the deed; For highest aspiration will not lead Unto the calm beyond all questioning.

SCENE I.--_A cell in a convent_. JULIAN _alone_.

_Julian_.

Evening again slow creeping like a death!

And the red sunbeams fading from the wall, On which they flung a sky, with streaks and bars Of the poor window-pane that let them in, For clouds and shadings of the mimic heaven!

Soul of my cell, they part, no more to come.

But what is light to me, while I am dark!

And yet they strangely draw me, those faint hues, Reflected flushes from the Evening's face, Which as a bride, with glowing arms outstretched, Takes to her blushing heaven him who has left His chamber in the dim deserted east.

Through walls and hills I see it! The rosy sea!

The radiant head half-sunk! A pool of light, As the blue globe had by a blow been broken, And the insphered glory bubbled forth!

Or the sun were a splendid water-bird, That flying furrowed with its golden feet A flashing wake over the waves, and home!

Lo there!--Alas, the dull blank wall!--High up, The window-pane a dead gray eye! and night Come on me like a thief!--Ah, well! the sun Has always made me sad! I'll go and pray: The terror of the night begins with prayer.

(_Vesper bell_.) Call them that need thee; I need not thy summons; My knees would not so pain me when I kneel, If only at thy voice my prayer awoke.

I will not to the chapel. When I find Him, Then will I praise him from the heights of peace; But now my soul is as a speck of life Cast on the deserts of eternity; A hungering and a thirsting, nothing more.

I am as a child new-born, its mother dead, Its father far away beyond the seas.

Blindly I stretch my arms and seek for him: He goeth by me, and I see him not.

I cry to him: as if I sprinkled ashes, My prayers fall back in dust upon my soul.

(_Choir and organ-music_.) I bless you, sweet sounds, for your visiting.

What friends I have! Prismatic harmonies Have just departed in the sun's bright coach, And fair, convolved sounds troop in to me, Stealing my soul with faint deliciousness.

Would they took shapes! What levees I should hold!

How should my cell be filled with wavering forms!

Louder they grow, each swelling higher, higher; Trembling and hesitating to float off, As bright air-bubbles linger, that a boy Blows, with their interchanging, wood-dove-hues, Just throbbing to their flight, like them to die.

--Gone now! Gone to the Hades of dead loves!

Is it for this that I have left the world?-- Left what, poor fool? Is this, then, all that comes Of that night when the closing door fell dumb On music and on voices, and I went Forth from the ordered tumult of the dance, Under the clear cope of the moonless night, Wandering away without the city-walls, Between the silent meadows and the stars, Till something woke in me, and moved my spirit, And of themselves my thoughts turned toward G.o.d; When straight within my soul I felt as if An eye was opened; but I knew not whether 'Twas I that saw, or G.o.d that looked on me?

It closed again, and darkness fell; but not To hide the memory; that, in many failings Of spirit and of purpose, still returned; And I came here at last to search for G.o.d.

Would I could find him! Oh, what quiet content Would then absorb my heart, yet leave it free!

_A knock at the door. Enter Brother_ ROBERT _with a light_.

_Robert_.

Head in your hands as usual! You will fret Your life out, sitting moping in the dark.

Come, it is supper-time.

_Julian_.

I will not sup to-night.

_Robert_.

Not sup? You'll never live to be a saint.

_Julian_.

A saint! The devil has me by the heel.

_Robert_.

So has he all saints; as a boy his kite, Which ever struggles higher for his hold.

It is a silly devil to gripe so hard;-- He should let go his hold, and then he has you.

If you'll not come, I'll leave the light with you.

Hark to the chorus! Brother Stephen sings.

Chorus. _Always merry, and never drunk.

That's the life of the jolly monk_.

SONG.

They say the first monks were lonely men, Praying each in his lonely den, Rising up to kneel again, Each a skinny male Magdalene, Peeping scared from out his hole Like a burrowing rabbit or a mole; But years ring changes as they roll--

Cho. _Now always merry, &c_.

When the moon gets up with her big round face, Like Mistress Poll's in the market-place, Down to the village below we pace;-- We know a supper that wants a grace: Past the curtsying women we go, Past the smithy, all a glow, To the snug little houses at top of the row--