The poetical works of George MacDonald Volume Ii Part 2

_MY ROOM_

To G. E. M.

'Tis a little room, my friend-- Baby walks from end to end; All the things look sadly real This hot noontide unideal; Vaporous heat from cope to bas.e.m.e.nt All you see outside the cas.e.m.e.nt, Save one house all mud-becrusted, And a street all drought-bedusted!

There behold its happiest vision, Trickling water-cart's derision!

Shut we out the staring s.p.a.ce, Draw the curtains in its face!

Close the eyelids of the room, Fill it with a scarlet gloom: Lo, the walls with warm flush dyed!

Lo, the ceiling glorified, As when, lost in tenderest pinks, White rose on the red rose thinks!

But beneath, a hue right rosy, Red as a geranium-posy, Stains the air with power estranging, Known with unknown clouding, changing.

See in ruddy atmosphere Commonplaceness disappear!

Look around on either hand-- Are we not in fairyland?

On that couch, inwrapt in mist Of vaporized amethyst, Lie, as in a rose's heart: Secret things I would impart; Any time you would believe them-- Easier, though, you will receive them Bathed in glowing mystery Of the red light shadowy; For this ruby-hearted hue, Sanguine core of all the true, Which for love the heart would plunder Is the very hue of wonder; This dissolving dreamy red Is the self-same radiance shed From the heart of poet young, Glowing poppy sunlight-stung: If in light you make a schism 'Tis the deepest in the prism.

This poor-seeming room, in fact Is of marvels all compact, So disguised by common daylight By its disenchanting gray light, Only eyes that see by s.h.i.+ning, Inside pierce to its live lining.

Loftiest observatory Ne'er unveiled such hidden glory; Never sage's furnace-kitchen Magic wonders was so rich in; Never book of wizard old Clasped such in its iron hold.

See that case against the wall, Darkly-dull-purpureal!-- A piano to the prosy, But to us in twilight rosy-- What?--A cave where Nereids lie, Naiads, Dryads, Oreads sigh, Dreaming of the time when they Danced in forest and in bay.

In that chest before your eyes Nature self-enchanted lies;-- Lofty days of summer splendour; Low dim eves of opal tender; Airy hunts of cloud and wind; Brooding storm--below, behind; Awful hills and midnight woods; Sunny rains in solitudes; Babbling streams in forests h.o.a.r; Seven-hued icebergs; oceans frore.-- Yes; did I not say _enchanted_, That is, hid away till wanted?

Do you hear a low-voiced singing?

'Tis the sorceress's, flinging Spells around her baby's riot, Binding her in moveless quiet:-- She at will can disenchant them, And to prayer believing grant them.

You believe me: soon will night Free her hands for fair delight; Then invoke her--she will come.

Fold your arms, be blind and dumb.

She will bring a book of spells Writ like crabbed oracles; Like Sabrina's will her hands Thaw the power of charmed bands.

First will ransomed music rush Round thee in a glorious gush; Next, upon its waves will sally, Like a stream-G.o.d down a valley, Nature's self, the formless former, Nature's self, the peaceful stormer; She will enter, captive take thee, And both one and many make thee, One by softest power to still thee, Many by the thoughts that fill thee.-- Let me guess three guesses where She her prisoner will bear!

On a mountain-top you stand Gazing o'er a sunny land; s.h.i.+ning streams, like silver veins, Rise in dells and meet in plains; Up yon brook a hollow lies Dumb as love that fears surprise; Moorland tracts of broken ground O'er it rise and close it round: He who climbs from bosky dale Hears the foggy breezes wail.

Yes, thou know'st the nest of love, Know'st the waste around, above!

In thy soul or in thy past, Straight it melts into the vast, Quickly vanishes away In a gloom of darkening gray.

Sinks the sadness into rest, Ripple like on water's breast: Mother's bosom rests the daughter-- Grief the ripple, love the water; And thy brain like wind-harp lies Breathed upon from distant skies, Till, soft-gathering, visions new Grow like vapours in the blue: White forms, flus.h.i.+ng hyacinthine, Move in motions labyrinthine; With an airy wishful gait On the counter-motion wait; Sweet restraint and action free Show the law of liberty; Master of the revel still The obedient, perfect will; Hating smallest thing awry, Breathing, breeding harmony; While the G.o.d-like graceful feet, For such mazy marvelling meet, Press from air a s.h.i.+ning sound, Rippling after, lingering round: Hair afloat and arms aloft Fill the chord of movement soft.

Gone the measure polyhedral!

Towers aloft a fair cathedral!

Every arch--like praying arms Upward flung in love's alarms, Knit by clasped hands o'erhead-- Heaves to heaven a weight of dread; In thee, like an angel-crowd, Grows the music, praying loud, Swells thy spirit with devotion As a strong wind swells the ocean, Sweeps the visioned pile away, Leaves thy heart alone to pray.

As the prayer grows dim and dies Like a sunset from the skies, Glides another change of mood O'er thy inner solitude: Girt with Music's magic zone, Lo, thyself magician grown!

Open-eyed thou walk'st through earth Brooding on the aeonian birth Of a thousand wonder-things In divine dusk of their springs: Half thou seest whence they flow, Half thou seest whither go-- Nature's consciousness, whereby On herself she turns her eye, Hoping for all men and thee Perfected, pure harmony.

But when, sinking slow, the sun Leaves the glowing curtain dun, I, of prophet-insight reft, Shall be dull and dreamless left; I must hasten proof on proof, Weaving in the warp my woof!

What are those upon the wall, Ranged in rows symmetrical?

Through the wall of things external Posterns they to the supernal; Through Earth's battlemented height Loopholes to the Infinite; Through locked gates of place and time, Wickets to the eternal prime Lying round the noisy day Full of silences alway.

That, my friend? Now, it is curious You should hit upon the spurious!

'Tis a door to nowhere, that; Never soul went in thereat; Lies behind, a limy wall Hung with cobwebs, that is all.

Do not open that one yet, Wait until the sun is set.

If you careless lift its latch Glimpse of nothing will you catch; Mere negation, blank of hue, Out of it will stare at you; Wait, I say, the coming night, Fittest time for second sight, Then the wide eyes of the mind See far down the Spirit's wind.

You may have to strain and pull, Force and lift with cunning tool, Ere the rugged, ill-joined door Yield the sight it stands before: When at last, with grating sweep, Wide it swings--behold, the deep!

Thou art standing on the verge Where material things emerge; h.o.a.ry silence, lightning fleet, Shooteth h.e.l.lward at thy feet!

Fear not thou whose life is truth, Gazing will renew thy youth; But where sin of soul or flesh Held a man in spider-mesh, It would drag him through that door, Give him up to loreless lore, Ages to be blown and hurled Up and down a deedless world.

Ah, your eyes ask how I brook Doors that are not, doors to look!

That is whither I was tending, And it brings me to good ending.

Baby is the cause of this; Odd it seems, but so it is;-- Baby, with her pretty prate Molten, half articulate, Full of hints, suggestions, catches, Broken verse, and music s.n.a.t.c.hes!

She, like seraph gone astray, Must be shown the homeward way; Plant of heaven, she, rooted lowly, Must put forth a blossom holy, Must, through culture high and steady, Slow unfold a gracious lady; She must therefore live in wonder, See nought common up or under; She the moon and stars and sea, Worm and b.u.t.terfly and bee, Yea, the sparkle in a stone, Must with marvel look upon; She must love, in heaven's own blueness, Both the colour and the newness; Must each day from darkness break, Often often come awake, Never with her childhood part, Change the brain, but keep the heart.

So, from lips and hands and looks, She must learn to honour books, Turn the leaves with careful fingers, Never lean where long she lingers; But when she is old enough She must learn the lesson rough That to seem is not to be, As to know is not to see; That to man or book, _appearing_ Gives no t.i.tle to revering; That a pump is not a well, Nor a priest an oracle: This to leave safe in her mind, I will take her and go find Certain no-books, dreary apes, Tell her they are mere mock-shapes No more to be honoured by her But be laid upon the fire; Book-appearance must not hinder Their consuming to a cinder.

Would you see the small immortal One short pace within Time's portal?

I will fetch her.--Is she white?

Solemn? true? a light in light?

See! is not her lily-skin White as whitest ermelin Washed in palest thinnest rose?

Very thought of G.o.d she goes, Ne'er to wander, in her dance, Out of his love-radiance!

But, my friend, I've rattled plenty To suffice for mornings twenty!

I should never stop of course, Therefore stop I will perforce.-- If I led them up, choragic, To reveal their nature magic, Twenty things, past contradiction, Yet would prove I spoke no fiction Of the room's belongings cryptic Read by light apocalyptic: There is that strange thing, gla.s.s-masked, With continual questions tasked, Ticking with untiring rock: It is called an eight-day clock, But to me the thing appears Busy winding up the years, Drawing on with coiling chain The epiphany again.

_DEATH AND BIRTH_.

'Tis the midnight hour; I heard The Abbey-bell give out the word.

Seldom is the lamp-ray shed On some dwarfed foot-farer's head In the deep and narrow street Lying ditch-like at my feet Where I stand at lattice high Downward gazing listlessly From my house upon the rock, Peak of earth's foundation-block.

There her windows, every story, s.h.i.+ne with far-off nebulous glory!

Round her in that luminous cloud Stars obedient press and crowd, She the centre of all gazing, She the sun her planets dazing!

In her eyes' victorious lightning Some are paling, some are brightening: Those on which they gracious turn, Stars combust, all tenfold burn; Those from which they look away Listless roam in twilight gray!

When on her my looks I bent Wonder shook me like a tent, And my eyes grew dim with sheen, Wasting light upon its queen!

But though she my eyes might chain, Rule my ebbing flowing brain, Truth alone, without, within, Can the soul's high homage win!

He, I do not doubt, is there Who unveiled my idol fair!

And I thank him, grateful much, Though his end was none of such.

He from shapely lips of wit Let the fire-flakes lightly flit, Scorching as the snow that fell On the d.a.m.ned in Dante's h.e.l.l; With keen, gentle opposition, Playful, merciless precision, Mocked the sweet romance of youth Balancing on spheric truth; He on sense's firm set plane Rolled the unstable ball amain: With a smile she looked at me, Stung my soul, and set me free.

Welcome, friend! Bring in your bricks.

Mortar there? No need to mix?

That is well. And picks and hammers?

Verily these are no shammers!-- There, my friend, build up that niche, That one with the painting rich!

Yes, you're right; it is a show Picture seldom can bestow; City palaces and towers, Terraced gardens, twilight bowers, Vistas deep through swaying masts, Pennons flaunting in the blasts: Build; my room it does not fit; Brick-glaze is the thing for it!