The poetical works of George MacDonald Volume Ii Part 6

Take Snow-white back to her glimmering stall; There let her stand and feed!-- I am overweening, ambitious, small, A creature of pride and greed!

Let me wash the hoofs, let me be the thrall, Jesus, of thy white steed!

_THE GOLDEN KEY._

From off the earth the vapours curled, Went up to meet their joy; The boy awoke, and all the world Was waiting for the boy!

The sky, the water, the wide earth Was full of windy play-- s.h.i.+ning and fair, alive with mirth, All for his holiday!

The hill said "Climb me;" and the wood "Come to my bosom, child; Mine is a merry gamboling brood, Come, and with them go wild."

The shadows with the sunlight played, The birds were singing loud; The hill stood up with pines arrayed-- He ran to join the crowd.

But long ere noon, dark grew the skies, Pale grew the shrinking sun: "How soon," he said, "for clouds to rise When day was but begun!"

The wind grew rough; a wilful power It swept o'er tree and town; The boy exulted for an hour, Then weary sat him down.

And as he sat the rain began, And rained till all was still: He looked, and saw a rainbow span The vale from hill to hill.

He dried his tears. "Ah, now," he said, "The storm was good, I see!

Yon pine-dressed hill, upon its head I'll find the golden key!"

He thrid the copse, he climbed the fence, At last the top did scale; But, lo, the rainbow, vanished thence, Was s.h.i.+ning in the vale!

"Still, here it stood! yes, here," he said, "Its very foot was set!

I saw this fir-tree through the red, This through the violet!"

He searched and searched, while down the skies Went slow the slanting sun.

At length he lifted hopeless eyes, And day was nearly done!

Beyond the vale, above the heath, High flamed the crimson west; His mother's cottage lay beneath The sky-bird's rosy breast.

"Oh, joy," he cried, "not _all_ the way Farther from home we go!

The rain will come another day And bring another bow!"

Long ere he reached his mother's cot, Still tiring more and more, The red was all one cold gray blot, And night lay round the door.

But when his mother stroked his head The night was grim in vain; And when she kissed him in his bed The rainbow rose again.

Soon, things that are and things that seem Did mingle merrily; He dreamed, nor was it all a dream, His mother had the key.

_SOMNIUM MYSTICI_

A Microcosm In Terza Rima.

I.

Quiet I lay at last, and knew no more Whether I breathed or not, so worn I lay With the death-struggle. What was yet before Neither I met, nor turned from it away; My only conscious being was the rest Of pain gone dead--dead with the bygone day, And long I could have lingered all but blest In that half-slumber. But there came a sound As of a door that opened--in the west Somewhere I thought it. As the hare the hound, The noise did start my eyelids and they rose.

I turned my eyes and looked. Then straight I found It was my chamber-door that did unclose, For a tall form up to my bedside drew.

Grand was it, silent, its very walk repose; And when I saw the countenance, I knew That I was lying in my chamber dead; For this my brother--brothers such are few-- That now to greet me bowed his kingly head, Had, many years agone, like holy dove Returning, from his friends and kindred sped, And, leaving memories of mournful love, Pa.s.sed vanis.h.i.+ng behind the unseen veil; And though I loved him, all high words above.

Not for his loss then did I weep or wail, Knowing that here we live but in a tent, And, seeking home, shall find it without fail.

Feeble but eager, toward him my hands went-- I too was dead, so might the dead embrace!

Taking me by the shoulders down he bent, And lifted me. I was in sickly case, But, growing stronger, stood up on the floor, There turned, and once regarded my dead face With curious eyes: its brow contentment wore, But I had done with it, and turned away.

I saw my brother by the open door, And followed him out into the night blue-gray.

The houses stood up hard in limpid air, The moon hung in the heavens in half decay, And all the world to my bare feet lay bare.

II.

Now I had suffered in my life, as they Must suffer, and by slow years younger grow, From whom the false fool-self must drop away, Compact of greed and fear, which, gathered slow, Darkens the angel-self that, evermore, Where no vain phantom in or out shall go, Moveless beholds the Father--stands before The throne of revelation, waiting there, With wings low-drooping on the sapphire-floor, Until it find the Father's ideal fair, And be itself at last: not one small thorn Shall needless any pilgrim's garments tear; And but to say I had suffered I would scorn Save for the marvellous thing that next befell: Sudden I grew aware I was new-born; All pain had vanished in the absorbent swell Of some exalting peace that was my own; As the moon dwelt in heaven did calmness dwell At home in me, essential. The earth's moan Lay all behind. Had I then lost my part In human griefs, dear part with them that groan?

"'Tis weariness!" I said; but with a start That set it trembling and yet brake it not, I found the peace was love. Oh, my rich heart!

For, every time I spied a glimmering spot Of window pane, "There, in that silent room,"

Thought I, "mayhap sleeps human heart whose lot Is therefore dear to mine!" I cared for whom I saw not, had not seen, and might not see!

After the love crept p.r.o.ne its shadow-gloom, But instant a mightier love arose in me, As in an ocean a single wave will swell, And heaved the shadow to the centre: we Had called it prayer, before on sleep I fell.

It sank, and left my sea in holy calm: I gave each man to G.o.d, and all was well.

And in my heart stirred soft a sleeping psalm.

III.

No gentlest murmur through the city crept; Not one lone word my brother to me had spoken; But when beyond the city-gate we stept I knew the hovering silence would be broken.

A low night wind came whispering: through and through It did baptize me with the pledge and token Of that soft spirit-wind which blows and blew And fans the human world since evermore.

The very gra.s.s, cool to my feet, I knew To be love also, and with the love I bore To hold far sympathy, silent and sweet, As having known the secret from of yore In the eternal heart where all things meet, Feelings and thinkings, and where still they are bred.

Sudden he stood, and with arrested feet I also. Like a half-sunned orb, his head Slow turned the bright side: lo, the brother-smile That ancient human glory on me shed Clothed in which Jesus came forth to wile Unto his bosom every labouring soul, And all dividing pa.s.sions to beguile To winsome death, and then on them to roll The blessed stone of the holy sepulchre!

"Thank G.o.d," he said, "thou also now art whole And sound and well! For the keen pain, and stir Uneasy, and sore grief that came to us all, In that we knew not how the wine and myrrh Could ever from the vinegar and gall Be parted, are deep sunk, yea drowned in G.o.d; And yet the past not folded in a pall, But breathed upon, like Aaron's withered rod, By a sweet light that brings the blossoms through, Showing in dreariest paths that men have trod Another's foot-prints, spotted of crimson hue, Still on before wherever theirs did wend; Yea, through the desert leading, of thyme and rue, The desert souls in which young lions rend And roar--the pa.s.sionate who, to be blest, Ravin as bears, and do not gain their end, Because that, save in G.o.d, there is no rest."

IV.

Something my brother said to me like this, But how unlike it also, think, I pray: His eyes were music, and his smile a kiss; Himself the word, his speech was but a ray In the clear nimbus that with verity Of absolute utterance made a home-born day Of truth about him, lamping solemnly; And when he paused, there came a swift repose, Too high, too still to be called ecstasy-- A purple silence, lanced through in the close By such keen thought that, with a sudden smiling, It grew sheen silver, hearted with burning rose.

He was a glory full of reconciling, Of faithfulness, of love with no self-stain, Of tenderness, and care, and brother-wiling Back to the bosom of a speechless gain.

V.

I cannot tell how long we joyous talked, For from my sense old time had vanished quite, s.p.a.ce dim-remaining--for onward still we walked.

No sun arose to blot the pale, still night-- Still as the night of some great spongy stone That turns but once an age betwixt the light And the huge shadow from its own bulk thrown, And long as that to me before whose face Visions so many slid, and veils were blown Aside from the vague vast of Isis' grace.

Innumerous thoughts yet throng that infinite hour, And hopes which greater hopes unceasing chase, For I was all responsive to his power.

I saw my friends weep, wept, and let them weep; I saw the growth of each grief-nurtured flower; I saw the gardener watching--in their sleep Wiping their tears with the napkin he had laid Wrapped by itself when he climbed Hades' steep; What wonder then I saw nor was dismayed!

I saw the dull, degraded monsters nursed In money-marshes, greedy men that preyed Upon the helpless, ground the feeblest worst; Yea all the human chaos, wild and waste, Where he who will not leave what G.o.d hath cursed Now fruitless wallows, now is stung and chased By visions lovely and by longings dire.

"But who believeth, he shall not make haste, Even pa.s.sing through the water and the fire, Or sad with memories of a better lot!

He, saved by hope, for all men will desire, Knowing that G.o.d into a mustard-jot May shut an aeon; give a world that lay Wombed in its sun, a molten unorbed clot, One moment from the red rim to spin away Librating--ages to roll on weary wheel Ere it turn homeward, almost spent its day!

Who knows love all, time nothing, he shall feel No anxious heart, shall lift no trembling hand; Tender as air, but clothed in triple steel, He for his kind, in every age and land, Hoping will live; and, to his labour bent, The Father's will shall, doing, understand."

So spake my brother as we onward went: His words my heart received, as corn the lea, And answered with a harvest of content.

We came at last upon a lonesome sea.

VI.

And onward still he went, I following Out on the water. But the water, lo, Like a thin sheet of gla.s.s, lay vanis.h.i.+ng!