The Poetical Works of George MacDonald (Parables)
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Yet the free heart will not be captive long;
And if she changes often, she is free. But if she changes: One has mastery
Who makes the joy the last in every song. And so to-day I blessed the breezes strong
That swept the blue; I blessed the breezes free That rolled wet leaves like rivers shiningly;
I blessed the purple woods I stood among.
"And yet the spring is better!" Bitterness
Came with the words, but did not stay with them. "Accomplishment and promise! field and stem
New green fresh growing in a fragrant dress!
And we behind with death and memory!" --Nay, prophet-spring! but I will follow thee.
CHRISTMAS DAY, 1850.
Beautiful stories wed with lovely days
Like words and music:--what shall be the tale Of love and nobleness that might avail
To express in action what this sweetness says--
The sweetness of a day of airs and rays
That are strange glories on the winter pale? Alas, O beauty, all my fancies fail!
I cannot tell a story in thy praise!
Thou hast, thou hast one--set, and sure to chime
With thee, as with the days of "winter wild;"
For Joy like Sorrow loves his blessed feet
Who shone from Heaven on Earth this Christmas-time
A Brother and a Saviour, Mary's child!--
And so, fair day, thou hast thy story sweet.
TO A FEBRUARY PRIMROSE.
I know not what among the grass thou art,
Thy nature, nor thy substance, fairest flower, Nor what to other eyes thou hast of power
To send thine image through them to the heart; But when I push the frosty leaves apart
And see thee hiding in thy wintry bower Thou growest up within me from that hour,
And through the snow I with the spring depart.
I have no words. But fragrant is the breath,
Pale beauty, of thy second life within. There is a wind that cometh for thy death,
But thou a life immortal dost begin, Where in one soul, which is thy heaven, shall dwell Thy spirit, beautiful Unspeakable!
IN FEBRUARY.
Now in the dark of February rains,
Poor lovers of the sunshine, spring is born, The earthy fields are full of hidden corn,
And March's violets bud along the lanes;
Therefore with joy believe in what remains.
And thou who dost not feel them, do not scorn Our early songs for winter overworn,
And faith in God's handwriting on the plains.
"Hope" writes he, "Love" in the first violet,
"Joy," even from Heaven, in songs and winds and trees; And having caught the happy words in these
While Nature labours with the letters yet,
Spring cannot cheat us, though her hopes be broken, Nor leave us, for we know what God hath spoken.
THE TRUE.
I envy the tree-tops that shake so high
In winds that fill them full of heavenly airs; I envy every little cloud that shares
With unseen angels evening in the sky; I envy most the youngest stars that lie
Sky-nested, and the loving heaven that bears, And night that makes strong worlds of them unawares;
And all God's other beautiful and nigh!
Nay, nay, I envy not! And these are dreams,
Fancies and images of real heaven! My longings, all my longing prayers are given
For that which is, and not for that which seems.
Draw me, O Lord, to thy true heaven above, The Heaven of thy Thought, thy Rest, thy Love.
THE DWELLERS THEREIN.
Down a warm alley, early in the year,
Among the woods, with all the sunshine in And all the winds outside it, I begin
To think that something gracious will appear, If anything of grace inhabit here,
Or there be friendship in the woods to win. Might one but find companions more akin
To trees and grass and happy daylight clear, And in this wood spend one long hour at home!
The fairies do not love so bright a place, And angels to the forest never come,
But I have dreamed of some harmonious race, The kindred of the shapes that haunt the shore Of Music's flow and flow for evermore.
AUTUMN'S GOLD.
Along the tops of all the yellow trees,
The golden-yellow trees, the sunshine lies; And where the leaves are gone, long rays surprise
Lone depths of thicket with their brightnesses; And through the woods, all waste of many a breeze,
Cometh more joy of light for Poet's eyes-- Green fields lying yellow underneath the skies,
And shining houses and blue distances.
By the roadside, like rocks of golden ore
That make the western river-beds so bright, The briar and the furze are all alight!
Perhaps the year will be so fair no more,
But now the fallen, falling leaves are gay, And autumn old has shone into a Day!
PUNISHMENT.
Mourner, that dost deserve thy mournfulness,
Call thyself punished, call the earth thy hell; Say, "God is angry, and I earned it well--
I would not have him smile on wickedness:"
Say this, and straightway all thy grief grows less:--
"God rules at least, I find as prophets tell, And proves it in this prison!"--then thy cell
Smiles with an unsuspected loveliness.
--"A prison--and yet from door and window-bar
I catch a thousand breaths of his sweet air! Even to me his days and nights are fair!
He shows me many a flower and many a star! And though I mourn and he is very far,
He does not kill the hope that reaches there!"
SHEW US THE FATHER.
"Shew us the Father." Chiming stars of space,
And lives that fit the worlds, and means and powers, A Thought that holds them up reveal to ours--
A Wisdom we have been made wise to trace. And, looking out from sweetest Nature's face,
From sunsets, moonlights, rivers, hills, and flowers, Infinite love and beauty, all the hours,
Woo men that love them with divinest grace; And to the depths of all the answering soul
High Justice speaks, and calls the world her own; And yet we long, and yet we have not known
The very Father's face who means the whole!
Shew us the Father! Nature, conscience, love Revealed in beauty, is there One above?
THE PINAFORE.
When peevish flaws his soul have stirred
To fretful tears for crossed desires, Obedient to his mother's word
My child to banishment retires.
As disappears the moon, when wind
Heaps miles of mist her visage o'er, So vanisheth his face behind
The cloud of his white pinafore.
I cannot then come near my child--
A gulf between of gainful loss; He to the infinite exiled--
I waiting, for I cannot cross.
Ah then, what wonder, passing show,
The Isis-veil behind it brings-- Like that self-coffined creatures know,
Remembering legs, foreseeing wings!
Mysterious moment! When or how
Is the bewildering change begun? Hid in far deeps the awful now
When turns his being to the sun!
A light goes up behind his eyes,
A still small voice behind his ears; A listing wind about him sighs,
And lo the inner landscape clears!
Hid by that screen, a wondrous shine
Is gathering for a sweet surprise; As Moses grew, in dark divine,
Too radiant for his people's eyes.
For when the garment sinks again,
Outbeams a brow of heavenly wile, Clear as a morning after rain,
And sunny with a perfect smile.
Oh, would that I the secret knew
Of hiding from my evil part, And turning to the lovely true
The open windows of my heart!
Lord, in thy skirt, love's tender gaol,
Hide thou my selfish heart's disgrace; Fill me with light, and then unveil
To friend and foe a friendly face.
THE PRISM.