Rampolli - A Year's Diary of an Old Soul
Home - George MacDonald - Rampolli - A Year's Diary of an Old SoulTHE TRYST.
That was the sound of the wicket!
That was the latch as it rose!
No--the wind that through the thicket
Of the poplars whirring goes.
Put on thy beauty, foliage-vaulted roof, Her to receive: with silent welcome grace her; Ye branches build a shadowy room, eye-proof, With lovely night and stillness to embrace her, Ye airs caressing, wake, nor keep aloof, In sport and gambol turning still to face her, As, with its load of beauty, lightly borne, Glides in the fairy foot, and dawns my morn.
What is that rustling the hedges? She, with her hurrying pace?
No, a bird among the sedges,
Startled from its hiding-place!
Quench thy sunk torch, O Day! Steal out, appear, Dim, ghostly Night, with dumbness us entrancing! Spread thy rose-purple veil about us here; Weave round us twigs, the mystery enhancing: Love's rapture flees the lurking listening ear-- Flies from the Day, so indiscreetly glancing; Hesper alone--no tattling tell-tale he-- Far-gazing, still, her confidant may be.
That was a voice, but far distant, Faint, like a whispering low!
No; the swan that draws persistent Through the pond his circles slow!
About mine ears harmonious breathings flow; The fountain falls in sweetly wavering rushes; The flower beneath the west wind's kiss bends slow; Delight from each to every thing outgushes; Grape-clusters beckon; peaches luring glow, And hide half in their leaves, up-swelling luscious; The air, which aromatic odours streak, Drinks up the glow upon my burning cheek.
Hear I not echoing footfalls Hither adown the pleach'd walk?
No; the over-ripened fruit falls, Heavy-swollen, from off its stalk!
Day's flaming eye at last is quenchéd quite;
In gentle death its colours all are paling;
Now boldly open in the fair twilight
The cups which in his blaze had long been quailing;
Slow lifts the moon her visage calmly bright;
Into great masses molten, earth sinks failing;
From every charm the zone drops unaware,
And shrouded beauty dawns upon me bare.
Yonder I see a white shimmer-- Silky--of robe or of shawl?
No; it is the column's glimmer
'Gainst the clipt yews' gloomy wall!
O longing heart, no more thyself befool, Flouted by Fancy's loveliness unreal! The empty arm no burning heart will cool, No shadow-joy hold place for Love's Ideal! O bring my live love all my heart to rule! Give me her hand to hold, my every weal! Or but the shadow of her mantle's hem-- And straight my dreams shall live, and I in them!
And soft as, from hills rosy-golden The dews of still gladness descend, So had she drawn nigh unbeholden, And wakened with kisses her friend.
* * * * *
HOPE.
Men talk with their lips and dream with their soul
Of better days hitherward pacing; To a happy, a glorious, golden goal
See them go running and chasing! The world grows old and to youth returns, But still for the Better man's bosom burns.
It is Hope leads him into life and its light;
She haunts the little one merry; The youth is inspired by her magic might;
Her the graybeard cannot bury: When he finds at the grave his ended scope, On the grave itself he planteth Hope.
She was never begotten in Folly's brain,
An empty illusion, to flatter; In the Heart she cries, aloud and plain:
We are born to something better! And that which the inner voice doth say The hoping spirit will not betray.
THE WORDS OF FAITH.
Three words I will tell you, of meaning full:
The lips of the many shout them; Yet were they born of no sect or school,
The heart only knows about them:
That man is of everything worth bereft Who in those three words has no faith left:
Man is born free--and is free alway
Even were he born in fetters! Let not the mob's cry lead you astray,
Or the misdeeds of frantic upsetters: Fear not the slave when he breaks his bands; Fear nothing from any free man's hands.
And Virtue--it is no empty sound;
That a man can obey her, no folly; Even if he stumble all over the ground
He yet can follow the Holy;
And what never wisdom of wise man knew A child-like spirit can simply do.
And a God there is--a steadfast Will,
However the human shrinketh! High over space and time He still,
The live Thought, doth what He thinketh; And though all things keep circling, to change confined, He keeps, in all changes, a changeless mind.
These three words cherish--of meaning full:
From mouth to mouth send them faring; For, although they spring from no sect or school,
Your hearts them witness are bearing; And man is never of worth bereft
While yet he has faith in those three words left.
Three words there are of weighty sound,
And from good men's lips they hail us; But a tinkling cymbal, a drum's rebound,
For help or for comfort they fail us! His Life's fruit away he forfeit flings Who catches after those shadows of things;
Who still believes in a Golden Age,
Where the Right and the Good reign in splendour: The Right and the Good war ever must wage--
Their foe will never surrender;
And chok'st thou him not in the upper air, His strength he will still on the earth repair.
Who yet believes that Fortune, the jilt,
To the noble will bind herself ever: Her love-looks follow the man of guilt;
The world to the good belongs never; He is in it a stranger; he wanders away Seeking a house that will not decay.
Who still believes that no human gaze
Truth ever her visage discloses: Her veil no mortal hand shall raise;
Man only thinks and supposes:
Thou mayst prison the spirit in sounding form, But the Fetterless walks away on the storm.
Then, noble spirit, from folly break free,
This heav'nly faith holding and handing: What the ear never heard, what no eye can see,
Is the lovely, the true, notwithstanding; Outside, the fool seeks for it evermore; The wise man finds it with closed door!