The poetical works of George MacDonald Volume Ii Part 54

Thy hand upon it press.

My Night! my Day!

Swift night and day betwixt, my world doth reel: Potter, take not thy hand from off the clay That whirls upon thy wheel.

O Heart, I cry For love and life, pardon and hope and strength!

O Father, I am thine; I shall not die, But I shall sleep at length!

_SONG-SERMON_.

Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs, For as his work thou giv'st the man.

From us, not thee, come all our wrongs; Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs: With small-cord whips and scorpion thongs Thou lay'st on every ill thy ban.

Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs, For as his work thou giv'st the man.

_A DREAM-SONG_.

The stars are spinning their threads, And the clouds are the dust that flies, And the suns are weaving them up For the day when the sleepers arise.

The ocean in music rolls, The gems are turning to eyes, And the trees are gathering souls For the day when the sleepers arise.

The weepers are learning to smile, And laughter to glean the sighs, And hearts to bury their care and guile For the day when the sleepers arise.

Oh, the dews and the moths and the daisy-red, The larks and the glimmers and flows!

The lilies and sparrows and daily bread, And the something that n.o.body knows!

_CHRISTMAS, 1880._

Great-hearted child, thy very being _The Son_, Who know'st the hearts of all us prodigals;-- For who is prodigal but he who has gone Far from the true to heart it with the false?-- Who, who but thou, that, from the animals', Know'st all the hearts, up to the Father's own, Can tell what it would be to be alone!

Alone! No father!--At the very thought Thou, the eternal light, wast once aghast; A death in death for thee it almost wrought!

But thou didst haste, about to breathe thy last, And call'dst out _Father_ ere thy spirit pa.s.sed, Exhausted in fulfilling not any vow, But doing his will who greater is than thou.

That we might know him, thou didst come and live; That we might find him, thou didst come and die; The son-heart, brother, thy son-being give-- We too would love the father perfectly, And to his bosom go back with the cry, Father, into thy hands I give the heart Which left thee but to learn how good thou art!

There are but two in all the universe-- The father and his children--not a third; Nor, all the weary time, fell any curse!

Not once dropped from its nest an unfledged bird But thou wast with it! Never sorrow stirred But a love-pull it was upon the chain That draws the children to the father again!

O Jesus Christ, babe, man, eternal son, Take pity! we are poor where thou art rich: Our hearts are small; and yet there is not one In all thy father's noisy nursery which, Merry, or mourning in its narrow niche, Needs not thy father's heart, this very now, With all his being's being, even as thou!

_RONDEL_.

I do not know thy final will, It is too good for me to know: Thou willest that I mercy show, That I take heed and do no ill, That I the needy warm and fill, Nor stones at any sinner throw; But I know not thy final will-- It is too good for me to know.

I know thy love unspeakable-- For love's sake able to send woe!

To find thine own thou lost didst go, And wouldst for men thy blood yet spill!-- How should I know thy final will, G.o.dwise too good for me to know!

_THE SPARROW_.

O Lord, I cannot but believe The birds do sing thy praises then, when they sing to one another, And they are lying seed-sown land when the winter makes them grieve, Their little bosoms breeding songs for the summer to unsmother!

If thou hadst finished me, O Lord, Nor left out of me part of that great gift that goes to singing, I sure had known the meaning high of the songster's praising word, Had known upon what thoughts of thee his pearly talk he was stringing!

I should have read the wisdom hid In the storm-inspired melody of thy thrush's bosom solemn: I should not then have understood what thy free spirit did To make the lark-soprano mount like to a geyser-column!

I think I almost understand Thy owl, his m.u.f.fled swiftness, moon-round eyes, and intoned hooting; I think I could take up the part of a night-owl in the land, With yellow moon and starry things day-dreamers all confuting.

But 'mong thy creatures that do sing Perhaps of all I likest am to the housetop-haunting sparrow, That flies brief, sudden flights upon a dumpy, fluttering wing, And chirps thy praises from a throat that's very short and narrow.

But if thy sparrow praise thee well By singing well thy song, nor letting noisy traffic quell it, It may be that, in some remote and leafy heavenly dell, He may with a trumpet-throat awake, and a trumpet-song to swell it!

_DECEMBER 23, 1879._

I.

A thousand houses of poesy stand around me everywhere; They fill the earth and they fill my thought, they are in and above the air; But to-night they have shut their doors, they have shut their shining windows fair, And I am left in a desert world, with an aching as if of care.

II.

Cannot I break some little nut and get at the poetry in it?

Cannot I break the shining egg of some all but hatched heavenly linnet?

Cannot I find some beauty-worm, and its moony coc.o.o.n-silk spin it?

Cannot I find my all but lost day in the rich content of a minute?

III.

I will sit me down, all aching and tired, in the midst of this never-unclosing Of door or window that makes it look as if truth herself were dozing; I will sit me down and make me a tent, call it poetizing or prosing, Of what may be lying within my reach, things at my poor disposing!

IV.

Now what is nearest?--My conscious self. Here I sit quiet and say: "Lo, I myself am already a house of poetry solemn and gay!

But, alas, the windows are shut, all shut: 'tis a cold and foggy day, And I have not now the light to see what is in me the same alway!"

V.

Nay, rather I'll say: "I am a nut in the hard and frozen ground; Above is the damp and frozen air, the cold blue sky all round; And the power of a leafy and branchy tree is in me crushed and bound Till the summer come and set it free from the grave-clothes in which it is wound!"

VI.