The poetical works of George MacDonald Volume I Part 41

Then would she fling her own wild arms on high, Over her head, in tossings like the waves, Or fix them, with clasped hands of prayer intense, Forward, appealing to the bitter sea.

Sometimes she sudden from her shoulders tore Her garments, one by one, and cast them out Into the roarings of the heedless surge, In vain oblation to the hungry waves.

As vain was Pity's will to cover her; Best gifts but bribed the sea, and left her bare.

In her poor heart and brain burned such a fire That all-unheeded cold winds lapped her round, And sleet-like spray flashed on her tawny skin.

Her food she seldom ate; her naked arms Flung it far out to feed the sea; her hair Streamed after it, like rooted ocean-weed In headlong current. But, alas, the sea Took it, and came again--it would have _her_!

And as the wave importunate, so despair, Back surging, on her heart rushed ever afresh: Sickening she moaned--half muttered and half moaned-- "She winna be content; she'll hae mysel!"

But when the night grew thick upon the sea, Quenching it almost, save its quenchless voice, Then, half-released until the light, she rose, And step by step withdrew--as dreaming man, With an eternity of slowness, drags His earth-bound, lead-like, irresponsive feet Back from a sleeping horror, she withdrew.

But when, upon the narrow beach at last, She turned her back upon her hidden foe, It blended with her phantom-breeding brain, And, scared at very fear, she cried and fled-- Fled to the battered base of the old tower, And round the rock, and through the arched gap Into the yawning blackness of the vault-- There sank upon the sand, and gasped, and raved.

Close cowering in a nook, she sat all night, Her face turned to the entrance of the vault, Through which a pale light s.h.i.+mmered--from the eye Of the great sleepless ocean--Argus more dread Than he with hundred lidless watching orbs, And slept, and dreamed, and dreaming saw the sea.

But in the stormy nights, when all was dark, And the wild tempest swept with slanting wing Against her refuge, and the heavy spray Shot through the doorway serpentine cold arms To seize the fore-doomed morsel of the sea, She slept not, evermore stung to new life By new sea-terrors. Now it was the gull: His clanging pinions darted through the arch, And flapped about her head; now 'twas a wave Grown arrogant: it rushed into her house, Clasped her waist-high, then out again and away To swell the devilish laughter in the fog, And leave her clinging to the rocky wall, With white face watching. When it came no more, And the tide ebbed, not yet she slept--sat down, And sat unmoving, till the low gray dawn Grew on the misty dance of spouting waves, That made a picture in the rugged arch; Then the old fascination woke and drew; And, rising slowly, forth she went afresh, To haunt the border of the dawning sea.

Yet all the time there lay within her soul An inner chamber, quietest place; but she Turned from its door, and staid out in the storm.

She, entering there, had found a refuge calm As summer evening, as a mother's arms.

There had she found her lost love, only lost In that he slept, and she was still awake.

There she had found, waiting for her to come, The Love that waits and watches evermore.

Thou too hast such a chamber, quietest place, Where that Love waits for thee. What is it, say, That will not let thee enter? Is it care For the provision of the unborn day, As if thou wert a G.o.d that must foresee?

Is it poor hunger for the praise of men?

Is it ambition to outstrip thy fellow In this world's race? Or is it love of self-- That greed which still to have must still destroy?-- Go mad for some lost love; some voice of old, Which first thou madest sing, and after sob; Some heart thou foundest rich, and leftest bare, Choking its well of faith with thy false deeds-- Unlike thy G.o.d, who keeps the better wine Until the last, and, if he giveth grief, Giveth it first, and ends the tale with joy: Such madness clings about the feet of G.o.d, Nor lets them go. Better a thousandfold Be she than thou! for though thy brain be strong And clear and workful, hers a withered flower That never came to seed, her heart is full Of that in whose live might G.o.d made the world; She is a well, and thou an empty cup.

It was the invisible unbroken cord Between the twain, her and her sailor-lad, That drew her ever to the ocean marge.

Better to die for love, to rave for love, Than not to love at all! but to have loved, And, loved again, then to have turned away-- Better than that, never to have been born!

But if thy heart be n.o.ble, say if thou Canst ever all forget an hour of pain, When, maddened with the thought that could not be, Thou might'st have yielded to the demon wind That swept in tempest through thy scorching brain, And rushed into the night, and howled aloud, And clamoured to the waves, and beat the rocks; And never found thy way back to the seat Of conscious self, and power to rule thy pain, Had not G.o.d made thee strong to bear and live!

The tale is now in thee, not thou in it; But the sad woman, in her wildest mood, Thou knowest her thy sister! She is fair No more; her eyes like fierce suns blaze and burn; Her cheeks are parched and brown; her haggard form Is wasted by wild storms of soul and sea; Yet in her very self is that which still Reminds thee of a story, old, not dead, Which G.o.d has in his keeping--of thyself.

Ah, not forgot are children when they sleep!

The darkness lasts all night, and clears the eyes; Then comes the morning with the joy of light.

Oh, surely madness hideth not from Him!

Nor doth a soul cease to be beautiful In his sight, that its beauty is withdrawn, And hid by pale eclipse from human eyes.

As the chill snow is friendly to the earth, And pain and loss are friendly to the soul, s.h.i.+elding it from the black heart-killing frost; So madness is but one of G.o.d's pale winters; And when the winter over is and gone, Then smile the skies, then blooms the earth again, And the fair time of singing birds is come: Into the cold wind and the howling night, G.o.d sent for her, and she was carried in Where there was no more sea.

What messenger Ran from the door of heaven to bring her home?

The sea, her terror.

In the rocks that stand Below the cliff, there lies a rounded hollow, Scooped like a basin, with jagged and pinnacled sides: Low buried when the wind heaps up the surge, It lifts in the respiration of the tide Its broken edges, and, then, deep within Lies resting water, radiantly clear: There, on a morn of suns.h.i.+ne, while the wind Yet blew, and heaved yet the billowy sea With memories of a night of stormy dreams, At rest they found her: in the sleep which is And is not death, she, lying very still, Absorbed the bliss that follows after pain.

O life of love, conquered at last by fate!

O life raised from the dead by saviour Death!

O love unconquered and invincible!

The enemy sea had cooled her burning brain; Had laid to rest the heart that could not rest; Had hid the horror of its own dread face!

'Twas but one desolate cry, and then her fear Became a blessed fact, and straight she knew What G.o.d knew all the time--that it was well.

O thou whose feet tread ever the wet sands And howling rocks along the wearing sh.o.r.e, Roaming the borders of the sea of death!

Strain not thine eyes, bedimmed with longing tears, No sail comes climbing back across that line.

Turn thee, and to thy work; let G.o.d alone, And wait for him: faint o'er the waves will come Far-floating whispers from the other sh.o.r.e To thine averted ears. Do thou thy work, And thou shalt follow--follow, and find thine own.

And thou who fearest something that may come; Around whose house the storm of terror breaks All night; to whose love-sharpened ear, all day, The Invisible is calling at the door, To render up a life thou canst not keep, Or love that will not stay,--open thy door, And carry out thy dying to the marge Of the great sea; yea, walk into the flood, And lay thy dead upon the moaning waves.

Give them to G.o.d to bury; float them again, With sighs and prayers to waft them through the gloom, Back to the spring of life. Say--"If they die, Thou, the one life of life, art still alive, And thou canst make thy dead alive again!"

Ah G.o.d, the earth is full of cries and moans, And dull despair, that neither moans nor cries; Thousands of hearts are waiting helplessly; The whole creation groaneth, travaileth For what it knows not--with a formless hope Of resurrection or of dreamless death!

Raise thou the dead; restore the Aprils withered In hearts of maidens; give their manhood back To old men feebly mournful o'er a life That scarce hath memory but the mournfulness!

There is no past with thee: bring back once more The summer eves of lovers, over which The wintry wind that raveth through the world Heaps wretched leaves in gusts of ghastly snow; Bring back the mother-heaven of orphans lone, The brother's and the sister's faithfulness;-- Bring in the kingdom of the Son of Man.

They troop around me, children wildly crying; Women with faded eyes, all spent of tears; Men who have lived for love, yet lived alone; Yea, some consuming in cold fires of shame!

O G.o.d, thou hast a work for all thy strength In saving these thy hearts with full content-- Except thou give them Lethe's stream to drink, And that, my G.o.d, were all unworthy thee!

Dome up, O heaven, yet higher o'er my head!

Back, back, horizon; widen out my world!

Rush in, O fathomless sea of the Unknown!

For, though he slay me, I will trust in G.o.d.

THE DISCIPLE.

DEDICATION.

To all who fain Would keep the grain, And cast the husk away-- That it may feed The living seed, And serve it with decay-- I offer this dim story Whose clouds crack into glory.

THE DISCIPLE.

I.

The times are changed, and gone the day When the high heavenly land, Though unbeheld, quite near them lay, And men could understand.

The dead yet find it, who, when here, Did love it more than this; They enter in, are filled with cheer, And pain expires in bliss.

All glorious gleams the blessed land!-- O G.o.d, forgive, I pray: The heart thou holdest in thy hand Loves more this sunny day!

I see the hundred thousand wait Around the radiant throne: Ah, what a dreary, gilded state!

What crowds of beings lone!

I do not care for singing psalms; I tire of good men's talk; To me there is no joy in palms, Or white-robed, solemn walk.

I love to hear the wild winds meet, The wild old winds at night; To watch the cold stars flash and beat, The feathery snow alight.

I love all tales of valiant men, Of women good and fair: If I were rich and strong, ah, then I would do something rare!

But for thy temple in the sky, Its pillars strong and white-- I cannot love it, though I try, And long with all my might.

Sometimes a joy lays hold on me, And I am speechless then; Almost a martyr I could be, To join the holy men.