The poetical works of George MacDonald Volume Ii Part 34

0 Earth, Earth, Earth, I am dying for love of thee, For thou hast given me birth, And thy hands have tended me.

I would fall asleep on thy breast When its swelling folds are bare, When the thrush dreams of its nest And the life of its joy in the air;

When thy life is a vanished ghost, And the glory hath left thy waves, When thine eye is blind with frost, And the fog sits on the graves;

When the blasts are shivering about, And the rain thy branches beats, When the damps of death are out, And the mourners are in the streets.

Oh my sleep should be deep In the arms of thy swiftening motion, And my dirge the mystic sweep Of the winds that nurse the ocean.

And my eye would slowly ope With the voice that awakens thee, And runs like a glance of hope Up through the quickening tree;

When the roots of the lonely fir Are dipt in thy veining heat, And thy countless atoms stir With the gather of mossy feet;

When the sun's great censer swings In the hands that always be, And the mists from thy watery rings Go up like dust from the sea;

When the midnight airs are a.s.sembling With a gush in thy whispering halls, And the leafy air is trembling Like a stream before it falls.

Thy shadowy hand hath found me On the drifts of the G.o.dhead's will, And thy dust hath risen around me With a life that guards me still.

O Earth! I have caught from thine The pulse of a mystic chase; O Earth! I have drunk like wine The life of thy swiftening race.

Wilt miss me, mother sweet, A life in thy milky veins?

Wilt miss the sound of my feet In the tramp that shakes thy plains

When the jaws of darkness rend, And the vapours fold away, And the sounds of life ascend Like dust in the blinding day?

I would know thy silver strain In the shouts of the starry crowd When the souls of thy changing men Rise up like an incense cloud.

I would know thy brightening lobes And the lap of thy watery bars Though s.p.a.ce were choked with globes And the night were blind with stars!

From the folds of my unknown place, When my soul is glad and free, I will slide by my G.o.d's sweet grace And hang like a cloud on thee.

When the pale moon sits at night By the brink of her shining well, Laving the rings of her widening light On the slopes of the weltering swell,

I will fall like a wind from the west On the locks of thy prancing streams, And sow the fields of thy rest With handfuls of sweet young dreams.

When the sound of thy children's cry Hath stricken thy gladness dumb, I will kindle thine upward eye With a laugh from the years that come.

Far above where the loud wind raves, On a wing as still as snow I will watch the grind of the curly waves As they bite the coasts below;

When the shining ranks of the frost Draw down on the glistening wold In the mail of a fairy host, And the earth is mossed with cold,

Till the plates that shine about Close up with a filmy din, Till the air is frozen out, And the stars are frozen in.

I will often stoop to range On the fields where my youth was spent, And my feet shall smite the cliffs of change With the rush of a steep descent;

And my glowing soul shall burn With a love that knows no pall, And my eye of worship turn Upon him that fashioned all--

When the sounding waves of strife Have died on the G.o.dhead's sea, And thy life is a purer life That nurses a life in me.

_THY HEART_.

Make not of thy heart a casket, Opening seldom, quick to close; But of bread a wide-mouthed basket, Or a cup that overflows.

_0 LORD, HOW HAPPY!_

_From the German of Dessler._

O Lord, how happy is the time When in thy love I rest!

When from my weariness I climb Even to thy tender breast!

The night of sorrow endeth there-- Thou art brighter than the sun; And in thy pardon and thy care The heaven of heaven is won.

Let the world call herself my foe, Or let the world allure-- I care not for the world; I go To this dear friend and sure.

And when life's fiercest storms are sent Upon life's wildest sea, My little bark is confident Because it holds by thee.

When the law threatens endless death Upon the dreadful hill, Straightway from her consuming breath My soul goeth higher still-- Goeth to Jesus, wounded, slain, And maketh him her home, Whence she will not go out again, And where death cannot come.

I do not fear the wilderness Where thou hast been before; Nay rather will I daily press After thee, near thee, more!

Thou art my food; on thee I lean, Thou makest my heart sing; And to thy heavenly pastures green All thy dear flock dost bring.

And if the gate that opens there Be dark to other men, It is not dark to those who share The heart of Jesus then: That is not losing much of life Which is not losing thee, Who art as present in the strife As in the victory.

Therefore how happy is the time When in thy love I rest!

When from my weariness I climb Even to thy tender breast!

The night of sorrow endeth there-- Thou art brighter than the sun!

And in thy pardon and thy care The heaven of heaven is won!

_NO SIGN_.

O Lord, if on the wind, at cool of day, I heard one whispered word of mighty grace; If through the darkness, as in bed I lay, But once had come a hand upon my face;

If but one sign that might not be mistook Had ever been, since first thy face I sought, I should not now be doubting o'er a book, But serving thee with burning heart and thought.

So dreams that heart. But to my heart I say, Turning my face to front the dark and wind: Such signs had only barred anew his way Into thee, longing heart, thee, wildered mind.

They asked the very Way, where lies the way?

The very Son, where is the Father's face?

How he could show himself, if not in clay, Who was the lord of spirit, form, and s.p.a.ce!

My being, Lord, will nevermore be whole Until thou come behind mine ears and eyes, Enter and fill the temple of my soul With perfect contact--such a sweet surprise,

Such presence as, before it met the view, The prophet-fancy could not once foresee, Though every corner of the temple knew By very emptiness its need of thee.