The poetical works of George MacDonald Volume Ii Part 13

In the sky the lark kept singing; On the earth the wind kept moaning.

A DEAD HOUSE.

When the clock hath ceased to tick Soul-like in the gloomy hall; When the latch no more doth click Tongue-like in the red peach-wall; When no more come sounds of play, Mice nor children romping roam, Then looks down the eye of day On a dead house, not a home!

But when, like an old sun's ghost, Haunts her vault the spectral moon; When earth's margins all are lost, Melting shapes nigh merged in swoon, Then a sound--hark! there again!-- No, 'tis not a nibbling mouse!

'Tis a ghost, unseen of men, Walking through the bare-floored house!

And with lightning on the stair To that silent upper room, With the thunder-shaken air Sudden gleaming into gloom, With a frost-wind whistling round, From the raging northern coasts, Then, mid sieging light and sound, All the house is live with ghosts!

Brother, is thy soul a cell Empty save of glittering motes, Where no live loves live and dwell, Only notions, things, and thoughts?

Then thou wilt, when comes a Breath Tempest-shaking ridge and post, Find thyself alone with Death In a house where walks no ghost.

'BELL UPON ORGAN.

It's all very well, Said the Bell, To be the big Organ below!

But the folk come and go, Said the Bell, And you never can tell What sort of person the Organ will blow!

And, besides, it is much at the mercy of the weather For 'tis all made in pieces and glued together!

But up in my cell Next door to the sky, Said the Bell, I dwell Very high; And with glorious go I swing to and fro; I swing swift or slow, I swing as I please, With summons or knell; I swing at my ease, Said the Bell: Not the tallest of men Can reach up to touch me, To smirch me or s.m.u.tch me, Or make me do what I would not be at!

And, then, The weather can't cause me to shrink or increase: I chose to be made in one perfect piece!

MASTER AND BOY.

"WHO is this little one lying,"

Said Time, "at my garden-gate, Moaning and sobbing and crying, Out in the cold so late?"

"They lurked until we came near, Master and I," the child said, "Then caught me, with 'Welcome, New-year!

Happy Year! Golden-head!'

"See Christmas-day, my Master, On the meadow a mile away!

Father Time, make me run faster!

I'm the Shadow of Christmas-day!"

"Run, my child; still he's in sight!

Only look well to his track; Little Shadow, run like the light, He misses you at his back!"

Old Time sat down in the sun On a grave-stone--his legs were numb: "When the boy to his master has run,"

He said, "Heaven's New Year is come!"

_THE CLOCK OF THE UNIVERSE_.

A clock aeonian, steady and tall, With its back to creation's flaming wall, Stands at the foot of a dim, wide stair.

Swing, sw.a.n.g, its pendulum goes, Swing--sw.a.n.g--here--there!

Its tick and its tack like the sledge-hammer blows Of Tubal Cain, the mighty man!

But they strike on the anvil of never an ear, On the heart of man and woman they fall, With an echo of blessing, an echo of ban; For each tick is a hope, each tack is a fear, Each tick is a _Where_, each tack a _Not here_, Each tick is a kiss, each tack is a blow, Each tick says _Why_, each tack _I don't know_.

Swing, sw.a.n.g, the pendulum!

Tick and tack, and _go_ and _come_, With a haunting, far-off, dreamy hum, With a tick, tack, loud and dumb, Swings the pendulum.

Two hands, together joined in prayer, With a roll and a volley of spheric thunder; Two hands, in hope spread half asunder, An empty gulf of longing embrace; Two hands, wide apart as they can fare In a fear still coasting not touching Despair, But turning again, ever round to prayer: Two hands, human hands, pa.s.s with awful motion From isle to isle of the sapphire ocean.

The silent, surfaceless ocean-face Is filled with a brooding, hearkening grace; The stars dream in, and sink fainting out, And the sun and the moon go walking about, Walking about in it, solemn and slow, Solemn and slow, at a thinking pace, Walking about in it to and fro, Walking, walking about.

With open beak and half-open wing Ever with eagerness quivering, On the peak of the clock Stands a c.o.c.k: Tip-toe stands the c.o.c.k to crow-- Golden c.o.c.k with silver call Clear as trumpet tearing the sky!

No one yet has heard him cry, Nor ever will till the hour supreme When Self on itself shall turn with a scream, What time the hands are joined on high In a hoping, despairing, speechless sigh, The perfect groan-prayer of the universe When the darkness clings and will not disperse Though the time is come, told ages ago, For the great white rose of the world to blow: --Tick, tack, to the waiting c.o.c.k, Tick, tack, goes the aeon-clock!

A polar bear, golden and gray, Crawls and crawls around the top.

Black and black as an Ethiop The great sea-serpent lies coiled beneath, Living, living, but does not breathe.

For the crawling bear is so far away That he cannot hear, by night or day, The bourdon big of his deep bear-ba.s.s Roaring atop of the silent face, Else would he move, and none knows then What would befall the sons of men!

Eat up old Time, O raging Bear; Take Bald-head, and the children spare!

Lie still, O Serpent, nor let one breath Stir thy pool and stay Time's death!

Steady, Hands! for the noon is nigh: See the silvery ghost of the Dawning shy Low on the floor of the level sky!

Warn for the strike, O blessed Clock; Gather thy clarion breath, gold c.o.c.k; Push on the month-figures, pale, weary-faced Moon; Tick, awful Pendulum, tick amain; And soon, oh, soon, Lord of life, and Father of boon, Give us our own in our arms again!

Then the great old clock to pieces will fall Sans groaning of axle or whirring of wheel.

And away like a mist of the morning steal, To stand no more in creation's hall; Its mighty weights will fall down plumb Into the regions where all is dumb; No more will its hands, in horror or prayer, Be lifted or spread at the foot of the stair That springs aloft to the Father's room; Its tick and its tack, _When?--Not now_, Will cease, and its m.u.f.fled groan below; Its sapphire face will dissolve away In the dawn of the perfect, love-potent day; The serpent and bear will be seen no more, Growling atop, or p.r.o.ne on the floor; And up the stair will run as they please The children to clasp the Father's knees.

O G.o.d, our father, Allhearts' All, Open the doors of thy clockless hall!

_THE THORN IN THE FLESH._

Within my heart a worm had long been hid.

I knew it not when I went down and chid Because some servants of my inner house Had not, I found, of late been doing well, But then I spied the horror hideous Dwelling defiant in the inmost cell-- No, not the inmost, for there G.o.d did dwell!

But the small monster, softly burrowing, Near by G.o.d's chamber had made itself a den, And lay in it and grew, the noisome thing!

Aghast I prayed--'twas time I did pray then!

But as I prayed it seemed the loathsome shape Grew livelier, and did so gnaw and sc.r.a.pe That I grew faint. Whereon to me he said-- Some one, that is, who held my swimming head, "Lo, I am with thee: let him do his worst; The creature is, but not his work, accurst; Thou hating him, he is as a thing dead."

Then I lay still, nor thought, only endured.

At last I said, "Lo, now I am inured A burgess of Pain's town!" The pain grew worse.

Then I cried out as if my heart would break.

But he, whom, in the fretting, sickening ache, I had forgotten, spoke: "The law of the universe Is this," he said: "Weakness shall be the nurse Of strength. The help I had will serve thee too."

So I took courage and did bear anew.

At last, through bones and flesh and shrinking skin, Lo, the thing ate his way, and light came in, And the thing died. I knew then what it meant, And, turning, saw the Lord on whom I leant.

_LYCABAS:_

A name of the Year. Some say the word means _a march of wolves_, which wolves, running in single file, are the Months of the Year.