The Poetical Works of George MacDonald (Parables)
Home - George MacDonald - The Poetical Works of George MacDonald (Parables)IV.
Joy! O joy! the dawning sea
Answers to the dawning sky,
Foretaste of the coming glee
When the sun will lord it high!
See the swelling radiance growing
To a dazzling glory-might!
See the shadows gently going
'Twixt the wave-tops wild with light!
Hear the smiting billows clang! See the falling billows lean Half a watery vault, and hang Gleaming with translucent green, Then in thousand fleeces fall, Thundering light upon the strand!-- This the whiteness which did call Through the dusk, across the land!
See, a boat! Out, out we dance!
Fierce blasts swoop upon my sail!
What a terrible expanse--
Tumbling hill and heaving dale!
Stayless, helpless, lost I float,
Captive to the lawless free!
But a prison is my boat!
Oh, for petrel-wings to flee!
- Look below
- each watery whirl
Cast in beauty's living mould!
Look above: each feathery curl
Dropping crimson, dropping gold!--
Oh, I tremble in the flush
Of the everlasting youth!
Love and awe together rush:
I am free in God, the Truth!
THE TREE'S PRAYER.
Alas, 'tis cold and dark!
The wind all night hath sung a wintry tune!
Hail from black clouds that swallowed up the moon
Beat, beat against my bark.
Oh! why delays the spring?
Not yet the sap moves in my frozen veins;
Through all my stiffened roots creep numbing pains,
That I can hardly cling.
The sun shone yester-morn;
I felt the glow down every fibre float,
And thought I heard a thrush's piping note
Of dim dream-gladness born.
Then, on the salt gale driven, The streaming cloud hissed through my outstretched arms, Tossed me about in slanting snowy swarms, And blotted out the heaven.
All night I brood and choose Among past joys. Oh, for the breath of June! The feathery light-flakes quavering from the moon The slow baptizing dews!
Oh, the joy-frantic birds!-- They are the tongues of us, mute, longing trees! Aha, the billowy odours! and the bees That browse like scattered herds!
The comfort-whispering showers That thrill with gratefulness my youngest shoot! The children playing round my deep-sunk root, Green-caved from burning hours!
See, see the heartless dawn, With naked, chilly arms latticed across! Another weary day of moaning loss On the thin-shadowed lawn!
But icy winter's past;
Yea, climbing suns persuade the relenting wind:
I will endure with steadfast, patient mind;
My leaves will come at last!
WERE I A SKILFUL PAINTER.
Were I a skilful painter,
My pencil, not my pen,
Should try to teach thee hope and fear,
And who would blame me then?--
Fear of the tide of darkness
That floweth fast behind,
And hope to make thee journey on
In the journey of the mind.
Were I a skilful painter,
What should I paint for thee?--
A tiny spring-bud peeping out
From a withered wintry tree;
The warm blue sky of summer
O'er jagged ice and snow,
And water hurrying gladsome out
From a cavern down below;
The dim light of a beacon
Upon a stormy sea,
Where a lonely ship to windward beats
For life and liberty;
A watery sun-ray gleaming
Athwart a sullen cloud
And falling on some grassy flower
The rain had earthward bowed;
Morn peeping o'er a mountain,
In ambush for the dark,
And a traveller in the vale below
Rejoicing like a lark;
A taper nearly vanished
Amid the dawning gray,
And a maiden lifting up her head,
And lo, the coming day!
I am no skilful painter;
Let who will blame me then
That I would teach thee hope and fear
With my plain-talking pen!--
Fear of the tide of darkness
That floweth fast behind,
And hope to make thee journey on
In the journey of the mind.
FAR AND NEAR.
[The fact which suggested this poem is related by Clarke in his Travels.]