The poetical works of George MacDonald Volume I Part 56

My plumes are ruffled, and they shake with cold, Yet with a trumpet-blast I will begin.

--Ah, no; your listening ears not thus I win!

Yet hear, sweet sisters; brothers, be consoled:-- Behind me comes a s.h.i.+ning one indeed; Christ's friend, who from life's cross did take him down, And set upon his day night's starry crown!

_Death_, say'st thou? Nay--thine be no caitiff creed!-- A woman-angel! see--in long white gown!

The mother of our youth!--she maketh speed.

ORGAN SONGS.

_TO A. J. SCOTT_

WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM.

I walked all night: the darkness did not yield.

Around me fell a mist, a weary rain, Enduring long. At length the dawn revealed

A temple's front, high-lifted from the plain.

Closed were the lofty doors that led within; But by a wicket one might entrance gain.

'Twas awe and silence when I entered in; The night, the weariness, the rain were lost In hopeful s.p.a.ces. First I heard a thin

Sweet sound of voices low, together tossed, As if they sought some harmony to find Which they knew once, but none of all that host

Could wile the far-fled music back to mind.

Loud voices, distance-low, wandered along The pillared paths, and up the arches twined

With sister arches, rising, throng on throng, Up to the roof's dim height. At broken times The voices gathered to a burst of song,

But parted sudden, and were but single rimes By single bells through Sabbath morning sent, That have no thought of harmony or chimes.

Hopeful confusion! Who could be content Looking and hearkening from the distant door?

I entered further. Solemnly it went--

Thy voice, Truth's herald, walking the untuned roar, Calm and distinct, powerful and sweet and fine: I loved and listened, listened and loved more.

May not the faint harp, tremulous, combine Its ghostlike sounds with organ's mighty tone?

Let my poor song be taken in to thine.

Will not thy heart, with tempests of its own, Yet hear aeolian sighs from thin chords blown?

_LIGHT_.

First-born of the creating Voice!

Minister of G.o.d's Spirit, who wast sent Waiting upon him first, what time he went Moving about mid the tumultuous noise Of each unpiloted element Upon the face of the void formless deep!

Thou who didst come unbodied and alone Ere yet the sun was set his rule to keep, Or ever the moon shone, Or e'er the wandering star-flocks forth were driven!

Thou garment of the Invisible, whose skirt Sweeps, glory-giving, over earth and heaven!

Thou comforter, be with me as thou wert When first I longed for words, to be A radiant garment for my thought, like thee!

We lay us down in sorrow, Wrapt in the old mantle of our mother Night; In vexing dreams we strive until the morrow; Grief lifts our eyelids up--and Lo, the light!

The sunlight on the wall! And visions rise Of s.h.i.+ning leaves that make sweet melodies; Of wind-borne waves with thee upon their crests; Of rippled sands on which thou rainest down; Of quiet lakes that smooth for thee their b.r.e.a.s.t.s; Of clouds that show thy glory as their own; O joy! O joy! the visions are gone by!

Light, gladness, motion, are reality!

Thou art the G.o.d of earth. The skylark springs Far up to catch thy glory on his wings; And thou dost bless him first that highest soars.

The bee comes forth to see thee; and the flowers Wors.h.i.+p thee all day long, and through the skies Follow thy journey with their earnest eyes.

River of life, thou pourest on the woods, And on thy waves float out the wakening buds; The trees lean toward thee, and, in loving pain, Keep turning still to see thee yet again; South sides of pines, haunted all day by thee, Bear violins that tremble humanly.

And nothing in thine eyes is mean or low: Where'er thou art, on every side, All things are glorified; And where thou canst not come, there thou dost throw Beautiful shadows, made out of the dark, That else were shapeless; now it bears thy mark.

And men have wors.h.i.+pped thee.

The Persian, on his mountain-top, Waits kneeling till thy sun go up, G.o.d-like in his serenity.

All-giving, and none-gifted, he draws near, And the wide earth waits till his face appear-- Longs patient. And the herald glory leaps Along the ridges of the outlying clouds, Climbing the heights of all their towering steeps.

Sudden, still mult.i.tudinous laughter crowds The universal face: Lo, silently, Up cometh he, the never-closing eye!

Symbol of Deity, men could not be Farthest from truth when they were kneeling unto thee!

Thou plaything of the child, When from the water's surface thou dost spring, Thyself upon his chamber ceiling fling, And there, in mazy dance and motion wild, Disport thyself--etherial, undefiled.

Capricious, like the thinkings of the child!

I am a child again, to think of thee In thy consummate glee.

How I would play with thee, athirst to climb On sloping ladders of thy moted beams, When through the gray dust darting in long streams!

How marvel at the dusky glimmering red, With which my closed fingers thou hadst made Like rainy clouds that curtain the sun's bed!

And how I loved thee always in the moon!

But most about the harvest-time, When corn and moonlight made a mellow tune, And thou wast grave and tender as a cooing dove!

And then the stars that flashed cold, deathless love!

And the ghost-stars that s.h.i.+mmered in the tide!

And more mysterious earthly stars, That shone from windows of the hill and glen-- Thee prisoned in with lattice-bars, Mingling with household love and rest of weary men!

And still I am a child, thank G.o.d!--to spy Thee starry stream from bit of broken gla.s.s Upon the brown earth undescried, Is a found thing to me, a gladness high, A spark that lights joy's altar-fire within, A thought of hope to prophecy akin, That from my spirit fruitless will not pa.s.s.

Thou art the joy of age: Thy sun is dear when long the shadow falls.

Forth to its friendliness the old man crawls, And, like the bird hung out in his poor cage To gather song from radiance, in his chair Sits by the door; and sitteth there His soul within him, like a child that lies Half dreaming, with half-open eyes, At close of a long afternoon in summer-- High ruins round him, ancient ruins, where The raven is almost the only comer-- Half dreams, half broods, in wonderment At thy celestial ascent Through rifted loop to light upon the gold That waves its bloom in some high airy rent: So dreams the old man's soul, that is not old, But sleepy mid the ruins that infold.

What soul-like changes, evanescent moods, Upon the face of the still pa.s.sive earth, Its hills, and fields, and woods, Thou with thy seasons and thy hours art ever calling forth!

Even like a lord of music bent Over his instrument, Giving to carol, now to tempest birth!

When, clear as holiness, the morning ray Casts the rock's dewy darkness at its feet, Mottling with shadows all the mountain gray; When, at the hour of sovereign noon, Infinite silent cataracts sheet Shadowless through the air of thunder-breeding June; When now a yellower glory slanting pa.s.ses 'Twixt longer shadows o'er the meadow gra.s.ses; And now the moon lifts up her s.h.i.+ning s.h.i.+eld, High on the peak of a cloud-hill revealed; Now crescent, low, wandering sun-dazed away, Unconscious of her own star-mingled ray, Her still face seeming more to think than see, Makes the pale world lie dreaming dreams of thee!

No mood, eternal or ephemeral, But wakes obedient at thy silent call!

Of operative single power, And simple unity the one emblem, Yet all the colours that our pa.s.sionate eyes devour, In rainbow, moonbow, or in opal gem, Are the melodious descant of divided thee.

Lo thee in yellow sands! Lo thee In the blue air and sea!

In the green corn, with scarlet poppies lit, Thy half-souls parted, patient thou dost sit.

Lo thee in dying triumphs of the west!

Lo thee in dew-drop's tiny breast!

Thee on the vast white cloud that floats away, Bearing upon its skirt a brown moon-ray!