The poetical works of George MacDonald Volume I Part 54

For three and thirty years, a living seed, A lonely germ, dropt on our waste world's side, Thy death and rising thou didst calmly bide; Sore companied by many a clinging weed Sprung from the fallow soil of evil and need; Hither and thither tossed, by friends denied; Pitied of goodness dull, and scorned of pride; Until at length was done the awful deed, And thou didst lie outworn in stony bower Three days asleep--oh, slumber G.o.dlike-brief For man of sorrows and acquaint with grief!

Life-seed thou diedst, that Death might lose his power, And thou, with rooted stem and shadowy leaf, Rise, of humanity the crimson flower.

XIV.

Where dim the ethereal eye, no art, though clear As golden star in morning's amber springs, Can pierce the fogs of low imaginings: Painting and sculpture are a mockery mere.

Where dull to deafness is the hearing ear, Vain is the poet. Nought but earthly things Have credence. When the soaring skylark sings How shall the stony statue strain to hear?

Open the deaf ear, wake the sleeping eye, And Lo, musicians, painters, poets--all Trooping instinctive, come without a call!

As winds that where they list blow evermore; As waves from silent deserts roll to die In mighty voices on the peopled sh.o.r.e.

XV.

Our ears thou openedst; mad'st our eyes to see.

All they who work in stone or colour fair, Or build up temples of the quarried air, Which we call music, scholars are of thee.

Henceforth in might of such, the earth shall be Truth's temple-theatre, where she shall wear All forms of revelation, all men bear Tapers in acolyte humility.

O master-maker, thy exultant art Goes forth in making makers! Pictures? No, But painters, who in love and truth shall show Glad secrets from thy G.o.d's rejoicing heart.

Sudden, green gra.s.s and waving corn up start When through dead sands thy living waters go.

XVI.

From the beginning good and fair are one, But men the beauty from the truth will part, And, though the truth is ever beauty's heart, After the beauty will, short-breathed, run, And the indwelling truth deny and shun.

Therefore, in cottage, synagogue, and mart, Thy thoughts came forth in common speech, not art; With voice and eye, in Jewish Babylon, Thou taughtest--not with pen or carved stone, Nor in thy hand the trembling wires didst take: Thou of the truth not less than all wouldst make; For Truth's sake even her forms thou didst disown: Ere, through the love of beauty, truth shall fail, The light behind shall burn the broidered veil!

XVII.

Holy of holies, my bare feet draw nigh: Jesus, thy body is the s.h.i.+ning veil By which I look on G.o.d, nor grow death-pale.

I know that in my verses poor may lie Things low, for see, the thinker is not high!

But were my song as loud as saints' all-hail, As pure as prophet's cry of warning wail, As holy as thy mother's ecstasy-- He sings a better, who, for love or ruth, Into his heart a little child doth take.

Nor thoughts nor feelings, art nor wisdom seal The man who at thy table bread shall break.

Thy praise was not that thou didst know, or feel, Or show, or love, but that thou didst the truth.

XVIII.

Despised! Rejected by the priest-led roar Of the mult.i.tude! The imperial purple flung About the form the hissing scourge had stung, Witnessing naked to the truth it bore!

True son of father true, I thee adore.

Even the mocking purple truthful hung On thy true shoulders, bleeding its folds among, For thou wast king, art king for evermore!

_I know the Father: he knows me the truth_.

Truth-witness, therefore the one essential king, With thee I die, with thee live wors.h.i.+pping!

O human G.o.d, O brother, eldest born, Never but thee was there a man in sooth, Never a true crown but thy crown of thorn!

_A MEMORIAL OF AFRICA_.

I.

Upon a rock I sat--a mountain-side, Far, far forsaken of the old sea's lip; A rock where ancient waters' rise and dip, Recoil and plunge, eddy, and oscillant tide, Had worn and worn, while races lived and died, Involved channels. Where the sea-weed's drip Followed the ebb, now crumbling lichens sip Spa.r.s.e dews of heaven that down with sunset slide.

I sat long-gazing southward. A dry flow Of withering wind sucked up my drooping strength, Itself weak from the desert's burning length.

Behind me piled, away and up did go Great sweeps of savage mountains--up, away, Where snow gleams ever, panthers roam, they say.

II.

This infant world has taken long to make, Nor hast Thou done with it, but mak'st it yet, And wilt be working on when death has set A new mound in some churchyard for my sake.

On flow the centuries without a break; Uprise the mountains, ages without let; The lichens suck; the hard rock's breast they fret; Years more than past, the young earth yet will take.

But in the dumbness of the rolling time, No veil of silence shall encompa.s.s me-- Thou wilt not once forget and let me be; Rather wouldst thou some old chaotic prime Invade, and, moved by tenderness sublime, Unfold a world, that I, thy child, might see.

_A. M. D_.

Methinks I see thee, lying straight and low, Silent and darkling, in thy earthy bed, The mighty strength in which I trusted, fled, The long arms lying careless of kiss or blow; On thy tall form I see the night-robe flow Down from the pale, composed face--thy head Crowned with its own dark curls: though thou wast dead, They dressed thee as for sleep, and left thee so!

My heart, with cares and questionings oppressed, Not oft since thou didst leave us turns to thee; But wait, my brother, till I too am dead, And thou shalt find that heart more true, more free, More ready in thy love to take its rest, Than when we lay together in one bed.

_TO GARIBALDI--WITH A BOOK_.

When at Philippi, he who would have freed Great Rome from tyrants, for the season brief That lay 'twixt him and battle, sought relief From painful thoughts, he in a book did read, That so the death of Portia might not breed Unmanful thoughts, and cloud his mind with grief: Brother of Brutus, of high hearts the chief, When thou at length receiv'st thy heavenly meed, And I have found my hoping not in vain, Tell me my book has wiled away one pang That out of some lone sacred memory sprang, Or wrought an hour's forgetfulness of pain, And I shall rise, my heart brimful of gain, And thank my G.o.d amid the golden clang.

_TO S. F. S_.

They say that lonely sorrows do not chance: More gently, I think, sorrows together go; A new one joins the funeral gliding slow With less of jar than when it breaks the dance.

Grief swages grief, and joy doth joy enhance; Nature is generous to her children so.

And were they quick to spy the flowers that blow, As quick to feel the sharp-edged stones that lance The foot that must walk naked in life's way,-- Blest by the roadside lily, free from fear, Oftener than hurt by dash of flinty spear, They would walk upright, bold, and earnest-gay; And when the soft night closed the weary day, Would sleep like those that far-off music hear.

_RUSSELL GURNEY_.