The poetical works of George MacDonald Volume I Part 75

Sky-mirror she, afloat in s.p.a.ce, Beholds our coming morn: Her heavenly joy hath such a grace, It ripens earthly corn;

Like some lone saint with upward eyes, Lost in the deeps of prayer: The people still their prayers and sighs, And gazing ripen there.

II.

So, like the corn moon-ripened last, Would I, weary and gray, On golden memories ripen fast, And ripening pa.s.s away.

In an old night so let me die; A slow wind out of doors; A waning moon low in the sky; A vapour on the moors;

A fire just dying in the gloom; Earth haunted all with dreams; A sound of waters in the room; A mirror's moony gleams;

And near me, in the sinking night, More thoughts than move in me-- Forgiving wrong, and loving right, And waiting till I see.

III.

Across the stubble glooms the wind; High sails the lated crow; The west with pallid green is lined; Fog tracks the river's flow.

My heart is cold and sad; I moan, Yet care not for my grief; The summer fervours all are gone; The roses are but leaf.

Old age is coming, frosty, h.o.a.r; The snows of time will fall; My jubilance, dream-like, no more Returns for any call!

O lapsing heart! thy feeble strain Sends up the blood so spare, That my poor withering autumn brain Sees autumn everywhere!

IV.

Lord of my life! if I am blind, I reck not--thou canst see; I well may wait my summer mind, When I am sure of thee!

_I_ made no brave bright suns arise, Veiled up no sweet gray eves; _I_ hung no rose-lamps, lit no eyes, Sent out no windy leaves!

I said not "I will cast a charm These gracious forms around;"

My heart with unwilled love grew warm; I took but what I found!

When cold winds range my winter-night, Be thou my summer-door; Keep for me all my young delight, Till I am old no more.

_SONGS OF THE WINTER DAYS_.

I.

The sky has turned its heart away, The earth its sorrow found; The daisies turn from childhood's play, And creep into the ground.

The earth is black and cold and hard; Thin films of dry white ice, Across the rugged wheel-tracks barred, The children's feet entice.

Dark flows the stream, as if it mourned The winter in the land; With idle icicles adorned, That mill-wheel soon will stand.

But, friends, to say 'tis cold, and part, Is to let in the cold; We'll make a summer of the heart, And laugh at winter old.

II.

With vague dead gleam the morning white Comes through the window-panes; The clouds have fallen all the night, Without the noise of rains.

As of departing, unseen ghost, Footprints go from the door; The man himself must long be lost Who left those footprints h.o.a.r!

Yet follow thou; tread down the snow; Leave all the road behind; Heed not the winds that steely blow, Heed not the sky unkind;

For though the glittering air grow dark, The snow will s.h.i.+ne till morn; And long ere then one dear home-spark Will winter laugh to scorn.

III.

Oh wildly wild the roaring blast Torments the fallen snow!

The wintry storms are up at last, And care not how they go!

In foam-like wreaths the water h.o.a.r, Rapt whistling in the air, Gleams through the dismal twilight frore; A region in despair,

A spectral ocean lies outside, Torn by a tempest dark; Its ghostly billows, dim descried, Leap on my stranded bark.

Death-sheeted figures, long and white, Rave driving through the spray; Or, bosomed in the ghastly night, Shriek doom-cries far away.

IV.

A morning clear, with frosty light From sunbeams late and low; They s.h.i.+ne upon the snow so white, And s.h.i.+ne back from the snow.

Down tusks of ice one drop will go, Nor fall: at sunny noon 'Twill hang a diamond--fade, and grow An opal for the moon.

And when the bright sad sun is low Behind the mountain-dome, A twilight wind will come and blow Around the children's home,

And puff and waft the powdery snow, As feet unseen did pa.s.s; While, waiting in its bed below, Green lies the summer gra.s.s.

_SONGS OF THE WINTER NIGHTS_.

I.

Back s.h.i.+ning from the pane, the fire Seems outside in the snow: So love set free from love's desire Lights grief of long ago.

The dark is thinned with snow-sheen fine, The earth bedecked with moon; Out on the worlds we surely s.h.i.+ne More radiant than in June!