The poetical works of George MacDonald Volume I Part 53

"I do beseech thee, G.o.d, show me thy face."

"Come up to me in Sinai on the morn!

Thou shall behold as much as may be borne."

And on a rock stood Moses, lone in s.p.a.ce.

From Sinai's top, the vaporous, thunderous place, G.o.d pa.s.sed in cloud, an earthy garment worn To hide, and thus reveal. In love, not scorn, He put him in a clift of the rock's base, Covered him with his hand, his eyes to screen-- Pa.s.sed--lifted it: his back alone appears!

Ah, Moses, had he turned, and hadst thou seen The pale face crowned with thorns, baptized with tears, The eyes of the true man, by men belied, Thou hadst beheld G.o.d's face, and straightway died!

_CONCERNING JESUS_.

I.

If thou hadst been a sculptor, what a race Of forms divine had thenceforth filled the land!

Methinks I see thee, glorious workman, stand, Striking a marble window through blind s.p.a.ce-- Thy face's reflex on the coming face, As dawns the stone to statue 'neath thy hand-- Body obedient to its soul's command, Which is thy thought, informing it with grace!

So had it been. But G.o.d, who quickeneth clay, Nor turneth it to marble--maketh eyes, Not shadowy hollows, where no sunbeams play-- Would mould his loftiest thought in human guise: Thou didst appear, walking unknown abroad, G.o.d's living sculpture, all-informed of G.o.d.

II.

If one should say, "Lo, there thy statue! take Possession, sculptor; now inherit it; Go forth upon the earth in likeness fit; As with a trumpet-cry at morning, wake The sleeping nations; with light's terror, shake The slumber from their hearts, that, where they sit, They leap straight up, aghast, as at a pit Gaping beneath;" I hear him answer make: "Alas for me, I cannot nor would dare Inform what I revered as I did trace!

Who would be fool that he like fool might fare, With feeble spirit mocking the enorm Strength on his forehead!" Thou, G.o.d's thought thy form, Didst live the large significance of thy face.

III.

Men have I seen, and seen with wonderment, n.o.ble in form, "lift upward and divine,"

In whom I yet must search, as in a mine, After that soul of theirs, by which they went Alive upon the earth. And I have bent Regard on many a woman, who gave sign G.o.d willed her beautiful, when he drew the line That shaped each float and fold of beauty's tent: Her soul, alas, chambered in pigmy s.p.a.ce, Left the fair visage pitiful--inane-- Poor signal only of a coming face When from the penetrale she filled the fane!-- Possessed of thee was every form of thine, Thy very hair replete with the divine.

IV.

If thou hadst built a temple, how my eye Had hungering fed thereon, from low-browed crypt Up to the soaring pinnacles that, tipt With stars, gave signal when the sun drew nigh!

Dark caverns in and under; vivid sky Its home and aim! Say, from the glory slipt, And down into the shadows dropt and dipt, Or reared from darkness up so holy-high?-- Thou build'st the temple of thy holy ghost From hid foundation to high-hidden fate-- Foot in the grave, head at the heavenly gate, From grave and sky filled with a fighting host!

Man is thy temple; man thy work elect; His glooms and glory thine, great architect!

V.

If thou hadst been a painter, what fresh looks, What outbursts of pent glories, what new grace Had shone upon us from the great world's face!

How had we read, as in eternal books, The love of G.o.d in loneliest s.h.i.+est nooks!

A lily, in merest lines thy hand did trace, Had plainly been G.o.d's child of lower race!

And oh how strong the hills, songful the brooks!

To thee all nature's meanings lie light-bare, Because thy heart is nature's inner side; Clear as, to us, earth on the dawn's gold tide, Her notion vast up in thy soul did rise; Thine is the world, thine all its splendours rare, Thou Man ideal, with the unsleeping eyes!

VI.

But I have seen pictures the work of man, In which at first appeared but chaos wild: So high the art transcended, they beguiled The eye as formless, and without a plan.

Not soon, the spirit, brooding o'er, began To see a purpose rise, like mountain isled, When G.o.d said, Let the Dry appear! and, piled Above the waves, it rose in twilight wan.

So might thy pictures then have been too strange For us to pierce beyond their outmost look; A vapour and a darkness; a sealed book; An atmosphere too high for wings to range; And so we could but, gazing, pale and change, And tremble as at a void thought cannot brook.

VII.

But earth is now thy living picture, where Thou shadowest truth, the simple and profound By the same form in vital union bound: Where one can see but the first step of thy stair, Another sees it vanish far in air.

When thy king David viewed the starry round, From heart and fingers broke the psaltery-sound: Lord, what is man, that thou shouldst mind his prayer!

But when the child beholds the heavens on high, He babbles childish noises--not less dear Than what the king sang praying--to the ear Of him who made the child and king and sky.

Earth is thy picture, painter great, whose eye Sees with the child, sees with the kingly seer.

VIII.

If thou hadst built some mighty instrument, And set thee down to utter ordered sound, Whose faithful billows, from thy hands unbound, Breaking in light, against our spirits went, And caught, and bore above this earthly tent, The far-strayed back to their prime natal ground, Where all roots fast in harmony are found, And G.o.d sits thinking out a pure consent;-- Nay, that thou couldst not; that was not for thee!

Our broken music thou must first restore-- A harder task than think thine own out free; And till thou hast done it, no divinest score, Though rendered by thine own angelic choir, Can lift one human spirit from the mire.

IX.

If thou hadst been a poet! On my heart The thought flashed sudden, burning through the weft Of life, and with too much I sank bereft.

Up to my eyes the tears, with sudden start, Thronged blinding: then the veil would rend and part!

The husk of vision would in twain be cleft!

Thy hidden soul in naked beauty left, I should behold thee, Nature, as thou art!

O poet Jesus! at thy holy feet I should have lien, sainted with listening; My pulses answering ever, in rhythmic beat, The stroke of each triumphant melody's wing, Creating, as it moved, my being sweet; My soul thy harp, thy word the quivering string.

X.

Thee had we followed through the twilight land Where thought grows form, and matter is refined Back into thought of the eternal mind, Till, seeing them one, Lo, in the morn we stand!-- Then started fresh and followed, hand in hand, With sense divinely growing, till, combined, We heard the music of the planets wind In harmony with billows on the strand!-- Till, one with earth and all G.o.d's utterance, We hardly knew whether the sun outspake, Or a glad suns.h.i.+ne from our spirits brake-- Whether we think, or winds and blossoms dance!

Alas, O poet leader, for such good Thou wast G.o.d's tragedy, writ in tears and blood!

XI.

Hadst thou been one of these, in many eyes, Too near to be a glory for thy sheen, Thou hadst been scorned; and to the best hadst been A setter forth of strange divinities; But to the few construct of harmonies, A sudden sun, uplighting the serene High heaven of love; and, through the cloudy screen That 'twixt our souls and truth all wretched lies, Dawning at length, hadst been a love and fear, Wors.h.i.+pped on high from Magian's mountain-crest, And all night long symbolled by lamp-flames clear, Thy sign, a star upon thy people's breast-- Where that strange arbitrary token lies Which once did scare the sun in noontide skies.

XII.

But as thou camest forth to bring the poor, Whose hearts are nearer faith and verity, Spiritual childhood, thy philosophy-- So taught'st the A B C of heavenly lore; Because thou sat'st not lonely evermore, With mighty truths informing language high, But, walking in thy poem continually, Didst utter deeds, of all true forms the core-- Poet and poem one indivisible fact; Because thou didst thine own ideal act, And so, for parchment, on the human soul Didst write thine aspirations--at thy goal Thou didst arrive with curses for acclaim, And cry to G.o.d up through a cloud of shame.

XIII.