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Read Ebook: The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 1 by MacDonald George
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Ebook has 1603 lines and 131038 words, and 33 pages
WITHIN AND WITHOUT
A HIDDEN LIFE
A STORY OF THE SEA-SHORE
THE DISCIPLE
THE GOSPEL WOMEN-- 1. The Mother Mary 2. The Woman that lifted up her Voice 3. The Mother of Zebedee's Children 4. The Syrophenician Woman 5. The Widow of Nain 6. The Woman whom Satan had bound 7. The Woman who came behind Him in the Crowd 8. The Widow with the Two Mites 9. The Women who ministered unto Him 10. Pilate's Wife 11. The Woman of Samaria 12. Mary Magdalene 13. The Woman in the Temple 14. Martha 15. Mary 16. The Woman that was a Sinner
A BOOK OF SONNETS-- The Burnt-Offering The Unseen Face Concerning Jesus A Memorial of Africa A.M.D To Garibaldi, with a Book To S.F.S Russell Gurney To One threatened with Blindness To Aubrey de Vere General Gordon The Chrysalis The Sweeper of the Floor Death
ORGAN SONGS-- To A.J. Scott Light To A. J. Scott I would I were a Child A Prayer for the Past Longing I know what Beauty is Sympathy The Thank-Offering Prayer Rest O do not leave Me Blessed are the Meek, for they shall inherit the Earth Hymn for a Sick Girl Written for One in sore Pain A Christmas Carol for 1862 A Christmas Carol The Sleepless Jesus Christmas, 1873 Christmas, 1884 An Old Story A Song for Christmas To my Aging Friends Christmas Song of the Old Children Christmas Meditation The Old Castle Christmas Prayer Song of the Innocents Christmas Day and Every Day The Children's Heaven Rejoice The Grace of Grace Antiphon Dorcas Marriage Song Blind Bartimeus Come unto Me Morning Hymn Noontide Hymn Evening Hymn The Holy Midnight Rondel A Prayer Home from the Wars God; not Gift To any Friend
VIOLIN SONGS-- Hope Deferred Death Hard Times If I were a Monk, and Thou wert a Nun My Heart The Flower-Angels To my Sister Oh Thou of little Faith Wild Flowers Spring Song Summer Song Autumn Song Winter Song Picture Songs A Dream Song At my Window after Sunset A Father to a Mother The Temple of God Going to Sleep To-Morrow Foolish Children Love is Home Faith Waiting Our Ship My Heart thy Lark Two in One Bedtime A Prayer A Song Prayer
SONGS OF THE DAYS AND NIGHTS-- Songs of the Summer Days Songs of the Summer Nights Songs of the Autumn Days Songs of the Autumn Nights Songs of the Winter Days Songs of the Winter Nights Songs of the Spring Days Songs of the Spring Nights
A BOOK OF DREAMS
ROADSIDE POEMS-- Better Things An Old Sermon with a New Text Little Elfie Reciprocity The Shadows The Child-Mother He Heeded Not The Sheep and the Goat The Wakeful Sleeper A Dream of Waking A Manchester Poem What the Lord Saith How shall He Sing who hath No Song This World Saint Peter Zacchaeus After Thomas Kemp
TO AND OF FRIENDS-- To Lady Noel Byron To the Same To Aurelio Saffi A Thanksgiving for F.D. Maurice George Rolleston To Gordon, leaving Khartoum Song of the Saints and Angels Failure To E.G., dedicating a Book To G.M.T. In Memoriam Lady Caroline Charteris
WITHIN AND WITHOUT:
A Dramatic Poem.
What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather-- With outward maker's force, or like an inward father.
TO L.P.M.D.
Receive thine own; for I and it are thine. Thou know'st its story; how for forty days-- Weary with sickness and with social haze, more delays Of blessedness forbid--I took my ways Into a solitude, Invention's mine; There thought and wrote, afar, and yet with thee. Those days gone past, I came, and brought a book; My child, developed since in limb and look. It came in shining vapours from the sea, And in thy stead sung low sweet songs to me, When the red life-blood labour would not brook.
WITHIN AND WITHOUT
Go thou into thy closet; shut thy door; And pray to Him in secret: He will hear. But think not thou, by one wild bound, to clear The numberless ascensions, more and more, Of starry stairs that must be climbed, before Thou comest to the Father's likeness near, And bendest down to kiss the feet so dear That, step by step, their mounting flights passed o'er. Be thou content if on thy weary need There falls a sense of showers and of the spring; A hope that makes it possible to fling Sickness aside, and go and do the deed; For highest aspiration will not lead Unto the calm beyond all questioning.
Call them that need thee; I need not thy summons; My knees would not so pain me when I kneel, If only at thy voice my prayer awoke. I will not to the chapel. When I find Him, Then will I praise him from the heights of peace; But now my soul is as a speck of life Cast on the deserts of eternity; A hungering and a thirsting, nothing more. I am as a child new-born, its mother dead, Its father far away beyond the seas. Blindly I stretch my arms and seek for him: He goeth by me, and I see him not. I cry to him: as if I sprinkled ashes, My prayers fall back in dust upon my soul.
I bless you, sweet sounds, for your visiting. What friends I have! Prismatic harmonies Have just departed in the sun's bright coach, And fair, convolved sounds troop in to me, Stealing my soul with faint deliciousness. Would they took shapes! What levees I should hold! How should my cell be filled with wavering forms! Louder they grow, each swelling higher, higher; Trembling and hesitating to float off, As bright air-bubbles linger, that a boy Blows, with their interchanging, wood-dove-hues, Just throbbing to their flight, like them to die. --Gone now! Gone to the Hades of dead loves! Is it for this that I have left the world?-- Left what, poor fool? Is this, then, all that comes Of that night when the closing door fell dumb On music and on voices, and I went Forth from the ordered tumult of the dance, Under the clear cope of the moonless night, Wandering away without the city-walls, Between the silent meadows and the stars, Till something woke in me, and moved my spirit, And of themselves my thoughts turned toward God; When straight within my soul I felt as if An eye was opened; but I knew not whether 'Twas I that saw, or God that looked on me? It closed again, and darkness fell; but not To hide the memory; that, in many failings Of spirit and of purpose, still returned; And I came here at last to search for God. Would I could find him! Oh, what quiet content Would then absorb my heart, yet leave it free!
SONG.
They say the first monks were lonely men, Praying each in his lonely den, Rising up to kneel again, Each a skinny male Magdalene, Peeping scared from out his hole Like a burrowing rabbit or a mole; But years ring changes as they roll--
When the moon gets up with her big round face, Like Mistress Poll's in the market-place, Down to the village below we pace;-- We know a supper that wants a grace: Past the curtsying women we go, Past the smithy, all a glow, To the snug little houses at top of the row--
And there we find, among the ale, The fragments of a floating tale: To piece them together we never fail; And we fit them rightly, I'll go bail. And so we have them all in hand, The lads and lasses throughout the land, And we are the masters,--you understand?
Last night we had such a game of play With the nephews and nieces over the way, All for the gold that belonged to the clay That lies in lead till the judgment-day! The old man's soul they'd leave in the lurch, But we saved her share for old Mamma Church. How they eyed the bag as they stood in the porch!
Or something for your head? There's such a hubbub Got up about you! The Abbot comes to-morrow.
This road will lead me to the hills, I think; And there I am in safety and at home.
He must be followed, found. Hunt's up, friend Julian! First your heels, old stag! But by and by your horns, and then your side! 'Tis venison much too good for the world's eating. I'll go and sift this business to the bran. Robert and him I have sometimes seen together!--God's curse! it shall fare ill with any man That has connived at this, if I detect him.
Ha! there is something now: the old woman drest In her Sunday clothes, and waiting at the door, As for her husband. Something will follow this. And here he comes, all in his best like her. They will be gone a while. Slowly they walk, With short steps down the street. Now I must wake The sleeping hunter-eagle in my eyes!
The devil's in the man!
Back!
Heart point and hilt strung on the line of force,
Your ribs will not mail your heart!
What a night For a soul to go out of doors! God in heaven!
Pardon me, dear lady;
'Tis not to save my blood I would defile Even your handkerchief.
I am pleased to think Ten monkish months have not ta'en all my strength.
For once, thank darkness! 'Twas sent for us, not him.
To the Prince Calboli at Florence. I Will see to all the rest. But let her know Her father is set free; assuredly, Ere you can say it is, it will be so.
My treasure-room! how little then I thought, Glad in my secret, one day it would hold A treasure unto which I dared not come. Perhaps she'd love me now--a very little!-- But not with even a heavenly gift would I Go begging love; that should be free as light, Cleaving unto myself even for myself. I have enough to brood on, joy to turn Over and over in my secret heart:-- She lives, and is the better that I live!
Stephen, I have sent for you, because I am told You said to-day, if I commissioned you, You'd scent him out, if skulking in his grave.
How her dear eyes bewildered looked at me! But her soul's eyes are closed. If this last long She'll die before my sight, and Joy will lead In by the hand her sister, Grief, pale-faced, And leave her to console my solitude. Ah, what a joy! I dare not think of it! And what a grief! I will not think of that! Love? and from her? my beautiful, my own! O God, I did not know thou wast so rich In making and in giving; did not know The gathered glory of this earth of thine. What! wilt thou crush me with an infinite joy? Make me a god by giving? Wilt thou take Thy centre-thought of living beauty, born In thee, and send it home to dwell with me?
Ah! now I know--I was so very thirsty!
She sleeps so peacefully! O God, I thank thee: thou hast sent her sleep. Lord, let it sink into her heart and brain.
Oh, nurse, I'm glad you're come! She is asleep. You must be near her when she wakes again. I think she'll be herself. But do be careful-- Right cautious how you tell her I am here. Sweet woman-child, may God be in your sleep!
Oh, many a hound is stretching out His two legs or his four, And the saddled horses stand about The court and the castle door, Till out come the baron, jolly and stout, To hunt the bristly boar!
The emperor, he doth keep a pack In his antechambers standing, And up and down the stairs, good lack! And eke upon the landing: A straining leash, and a quivering back, And nostrils and chest expanding!
The devil a hunter long hath been, Though Doctor Luther said it: Of his canon-pack he was the dean, And merrily he led it: The old one kept them swift and lean On faith--that's devil's credit!
Each man is a hunter to his trade, And they follow one another; But such a hunter never was made As the monk that hunted his brother! And the runaway pig, ere its game be played, Shall be eaten by its mother!
Oh, what a dream I had! Oh, Julian!-- I don't know when it was. It must have been Before you brought me here! I am sure it was.
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