The poetical works of George MacDonald Volume Ii Part 38

Then I knew that, up a staircase Which untrod will yet creak and shake, Deep in a distant chamber A ghost was coming awake--

In the growing darkness growing, Growing till her eyes appear Like spots of a deeper twilight, But more transparent clear:

Thin as hot air up-trembling, Thin as sun-molten c.r.a.pe, An ethereal shadow of something Is taking a certain shape;

A shape whose hands hang listless, Let hang its disordered hair; A shape whose bosom is heaving But draws not in the air.

And I know, what time the moonlight On her nest of shadows will sit, Out on the dim lawn gliding That shadowy shadow will flit.

V.

The moon is dreaming upward From a sea of cloud and gleam; She looks as if she had seen me Never but in a dream.

Down the stair I know she is coming, Bare-footed, lifting her train; It creaks not--she hears it creaking Where once there was a brain.

Out at yon side-door she's coming, With a timid glance right and left; Her look is hopeless yet eager, The look of a heart bereft.

Across the lawn she is flitting, Her thin gown feels the wind; Are her white feet bending the gra.s.ses?

Her hair is lifted behind!

VI.

Shall I stay to look on her nearer?

Would she start and vanish away?

Oh, no, she will never see me, Stand I near as I may!

It is not this wind she is feeling, Not this cool gra.s.s below; 'Tis the wind and the gra.s.s of an evening A hundred years ago.

She sees no roses darkling, No stately hollyhocks dim; She is only thinking and dreaming The garden, the night, and him,

The unlit windows behind her, The timeless dial-stone, The trees, and the moon, and the shadows A hundred years agone!

'Tis a night for a ghostly lover To haunt the best-loved spot: Is he come in his dreams to this garden?

I gaze, but I see him not.

VII.

I will not look on her nearer, My heart would be torn in twain; From my eyes the garden would vanish In the falling of their rain.

I will not look on a sorrow That darkens into despair, On the surge of a heart that cannot Yet cannot cease to bear.

My soul to hers would be calling: She would hear no word it said!

If I cried aloud in the stillness She would never turn her head!

She is dreaming the sky above her, She is dreaming the earth below:-- This night she lost her lover A hundred years ago.

_A NOONDAY MELODY_.

Everything goes to its rest; The hills are asleep in the noon; And life is as still in its nest As the moon when she looks on a moon In the depth of a calm river's breast As it steals through a midnight in June.

The streams have forgotten the sea In the dream of their musical sound; The sunlight is thick on the tree, And the shadows lie warm on the ground,-- So still, you may watch them and see Every breath that awakens around.

The churchyard lies still in the heat, With its handful of mouldering bone, As still as the long stalk of wheat In the shadow that sits by the stone, As still as the gra.s.s at my feet When I walk in the meadows alone.

The waves are asleep on the main, And the ships are asleep on the wave; And the thoughts are as still in my brain As the echo that sleeps in the cave; All rest from their labour and pain-- Then why should not I in my grave?

_WHO LIGHTS THE FIRE_?

Who lights the fire--that forth so gracefully And freely frolicketh the fairy smoke?

Some pretty one who never felt the yoke-- Glad girl, or maiden more sedate than she.

Pedant it cannot, villain cannot be!

Some genius, may-be, his own symbol woke; But puritan, nor rogue in virtue's cloke, Nor kitchen-maid has done it certainly!

Ha, ha! you cannot find the lighter out For all the blue smoke's pantomimic gesture-- His name or nature, s.e.x or age or vesture!

The fire was lit by human care, no doubt-- But now the smoke is Nature's tributary, Dancing 'twixt man and nothing like a fairy.

_WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT_?

Who would have thought that even an idle song Were such a holy and celestial thing That wickedness and envy cannot sing-- That music for no moment lives with wrong?

I know this, for a very grievous throng, Dark thoughts, low wishes, round my bosom cling, And, underneath, the hidden holy spring Stagnates because of their enchantment strong.

Blow, breath of heaven, on all this poison blow!

And, heart, glow upward to this gracious breath!

Between them, vanish, mist of sin and death, And let the life of life within me flow!

Love is the green earth, the celestial air, And music runs like dews and rivers there!

_ON A DECEMBER DAY_.

I.

This is the sweetness of an April day; The softness of the spring is on the face Of the old year. She has no natural grace, But something comes to her from far away

Out of the Past, and on her old decay The beauty of her childhood you can trace.-- And yet she moveth with a stormy pace, And goeth quickly.--Stay, old year, oh, stay!

We do not like new friends, we love the old; With young, fierce, hopeful hearts we ill agree; But thou art patient, stagnant, calm, and cold, And not like that new year that is to be;-- Life, promise, love, her eyes may fill, fair child!

We know the past, and will not be beguiled.

II.

Yet the free heart will not be captive long; And if she changes often, she is free.