A Hidden Life and Other Poems by George MacDonald (best books to read in your 20s txt) 📖

noiseless wing,
We'd tell a secret, in low breath:
"Mind, 'tis a dream of Spring.

"And in this dream, our brother's gone
Upstairs; he heard our father call;
For one by one we go alone,
Till he has gathered all."

Father, in joy our knees we bow;
This earth is not a place of tombs:
We are but in the nursery now;
They in the upper rooms.

For are we not at home in Thee,
And all this world a visioned show;
That, knowing what Abroad is, we
What Home is, too, may know?

And at thy feet I sit, O Lord,
As years ago, in moonlight pale,
I sat and heard my father's word
Reading a lofty tale.

So in this vision I would go
Still onward through the gliding years,
Reaping great Noontide's joyous glow,
Still Eve's refreshing tears.

One afternoon sit pondering
In that old chair, in that old room,
Where passing pigeon's sudden wing
Flashed lightning through the gloom.

There, try once more with effort vain,
To mould in one perplexed things;
And find the solace yet again
Faith in the Father brings.

Or on my horse go wandering round,
Mid desert moors and mountains high;
While storm-clouds, darkly brooding, found
In me another sky.

For so thy Visible grew mine,
Though half its power I could not know;
And in me wrought a work divine,
Which Thou hadst ordered so;

Filling my brain with form and word
From thy full utterance unto men;
Shapes that might ancient Truth afford,
And find it words again.

Till Spring, in after years of youth,
Wove its dear form with every form;
Now a glad bursting into Truth,
Now a low sighing storm.

But in this vision of the Past,
Spring-world to summer leading in,
Whose joys but not whose sorrows last,
I have left out the sin.

I picture but development,
Green leaves unfolding to their fruits,
Expanding flowers, aspiring scent,
But not the writhing roots.

Then follow English sunsets, o'er
A warm rich land outspread below;
A green sea from a level shore,
Bright boats that come and go.

And one beside me in whose eyes
Old Nature found a welcome home,
A treasury of changeful skies
Beneath a changeless dome.

But will it still be thus, O God?
And shall I always wish to see
And trace again the hilly road
By which I went to Thee?

We bend above a joy new given,
That gives new feelings gladsome birth;
A living gift from one in heaven
To two upon the earth.

Are no days creeping softly on
Which I should tremble to renew?
I thank thee, Lord, for what is gone-
Thine is the future too.

And are we not at home in Thee,
And all this world a visioned show;
That knowing what Abroad is, we
What Home is, too, may know?


FAR AND NEAR.

[The fact to which the following verses refer, is related by
Dr. Edward Clarke in his Travels.]


Blue sunny skies above; below,
A blue and sunny sea;
A world of blue, wherein did blow
One soft wind steadily.

In great and solemn heaves, the mass
Of pulsing ocean beat,
Unwrinkled as the sea of glass
Beneath the holy feet.

With forward leaning of desire,
The ship sped calmly on,
A pilgrim strong that would not tire,
Nor hasten to be gone.

The mouth of the mysterious Nile,
Full thirty leagues away,
Breathed in his ear old tales to wile
Old Ocean as he lay.

Low on the surface of the sea
Faint sounds like whispers glide
Of lovers talking tremulously,
Close by the vessel's side.

Or as within a sleeping wood
A windy sigh awoke,
And fluttering all the leafy brood,
The summer-silence broke.

A wayward phantasy might say
That little ocean-maids
Were clapping little hands of play,
Deep down in ocean-glades.

The traveller by land and flood,
The man of ready mind,
Much questioning the reason, stood-
No answer could he find.

That day, on Egypt's distant land,
And far from off the shore,
Two nations fought with armed hand,
With bellowing cannon's roar.

That fluttering whisper, low and near,
Was the far battle-blare;
An airy rippling motion here,
The blasting thunder there.

And so this aching in my breast,
Dim, faint, and undefined,
May be the sound of far unrest,
Borne on the spirit's wind;

The uproar of the battle fought
Betwixt the bond and free;
The thundering roll in whispers brought
From Heaven's artillery.


MY ROOM.

To G.E.M.


'Tis a little room, my friend;
A baby-walk from end to end;
All the things look sadly real,
This hot noontide's Unideal.
Seek not refuge at the casement,
There's no pasture for amazement
But a house most dim and rusty,
And a street most dry and dusty;
Seldom here more happy vision
Than water-cart's blest apparition,
We'll shut out the staring space,
Draw the curtains in its face.

Close the eyelids of the room,
Fill it with a scarlet gloom:
Lo! the walls on every side
Are transformed and glorified;
Ceiled as with a rosy cloud
Furthest eastward of the crowd,
Blushing faintly at the bliss
Of the Titan's good-night kiss,
Which her westward sisters share,-
Crimson they from breast to hair.
'Tis the faintest lends its dye
To my room-ah, not the sky!
Worthy though to be a room
Underneath the wonder-dome:
Look around on either hand,
Are we not in fairy-land?
In the ruddy atmosphere
All familiar things appear
Glowing with a mystery
In the red light shadowy;
Lasting bliss to you and me,
Colour only though it be.

Now on the couch, inwrapt in mist
Of vapourized amethyst,
Lie, as in a rose's heart;
Secret things I will impart;
Any time you would receive them;
Easier though you will believe them
In dissolving dreamy red,
Self-same radiance that is shed
From the summer-heart of Poet,
Flushing those that never know it.
Tell me not the light thou viewest
Is a false one; 'tis the truest;
'Tis the light revealing wonder,
Filling all above and under;
If in light you make a schism,
'Tis the deepest in the prism.

The room looks common; but the fact is
'Tis a cell of magic practice,
So disguised by common daylight,
By its disenchanting grey light,
Only spirit-eyes, mesmeric,
See its glories esoteric.
There, that case against the wall,
Glowingly purpureal!
A piano to the prosy-
Not to us in twilight rosy:
'Tis a cave where Nereids lie.
Naiads, Dryads, Oreads sigh,
Dreaming of the time when they
Danced in forest and in bay.
In that chest before your eyes,
Nature's self enchanted lies;
Awful hills and midnight woods;
Sunny rains in solitudes;
Deserts of unbounded longing;
Blessed visions, gladness thronging;

All this globe of life unfoldeth
In phantom forms that coffer holdeth.
True, unseen; for 'tis enchanted-
What is that but kept till wanted?
Do you hear that voice of singing?
'Tis the enchantress that is flinging
Spells around her baby's riot,
Music's oil the waves to quiet:
She at once can disenchant them,
To a lover's wish to grant them;
She can make the treasure casket
Yield its riches, as that basket
Yielded up the gathered flowers;
Yet its mines, and fields, and bowers,
Full remain, as mother Earth
Never tired of giving birth.

Do you doubt me? Wait till night
Brings black hours and white delight;
Then, as now, your limbs outstretching,
Yield yourself to her bewitching.
She will bring a book of spells
Writ like crabbed oracles;
Wherewith necromantic fingers
Raise the ghosts of parted singers:
Straight your senses will be bound
In a net of torrent sound.
For it is a silent fountain,
Fed by springs from unseen mountain.

Till with gestures cabalistic,
Crossing, lining figures mystic,
(Diagram most mathematic,
Simple to these signs erratic,)
O'er the seals her quick hands going
Loose the rills and set them flowing:
Pent up music rushing out
Bathes thy spirit all about;
Spell-bound nature, freed again,
Joyous revels in thy brain.

On a mountain-top you stand,
Looking o'er a sunny land;
Giant forces marching slow,
Rank on rank, the great hills go,
On and on without a stay,
Melting in the blue away.
Wondrous light, more wondrous shading;
High relief in faintness fading;
Branching streams, like silver veins,
Meet and part in dells and plains.
There a woody hollow lies,
Dumb with love, and bright with eyes;
Moorland tracks of broken ground
Rising o'er, it all around:
Traveller climbing from the grove
Needs the tender heavens above.
"Ah, my pictured life," you cry,
"Fading into sea and sky!"

Lost in thought that gently grieves you,
All the fairy landscape leaves you;
Sinks the sadness into rest,
Ripple-like on water's breast;
Mother's bosom rests the daughter,-
Grief the ripple, Love the water.
All the past is strangely blended
In a mist of colours splendid,
But chaotic as to form,
An unfeatured beauty-storm.

Wakes within, the ancient mind
For a gloriousness defined:
As she sought and knew your pleasure,-
Wiling with a dancing measure,
Underneath your closed eyes
She calls the shapes of clouded skies;
White forms flushing hyacinthine
Twine in curvings labyrinthine;
Seem with godlike graceful feet,
For such mazy motion meet,
To press from air each lambent note,
On whose throbbing fire they float;
With an airy wishful gait
On each others' motion wait;
Naked arms and vesture free
Fill up the dance of harmony.

Gone the measure polyhedral!
Springs aloft a high cathedral;
Every arch, like praying arms
Upward flung in love's alarms,
Knit by clasped hands o'erhead,
Heaves to heaven the weight of dread.
Underneath thee, like a cloud,
Gathers music, dim not loud,
Swells thy bosom with devotion,
Floats thee like a wave of ocean;
Vanishes the pile away,-
In heaven thou kneelest down to pray.

Let the sounds but reach thy heart,
Straight thyself magician art;
Walkest open-eyed through earth;
Seest wonders in their birth,
Whence they come and whither go;
Thou thyself exalted so,
Nature's consciousness, whereby
On herself she turns her eye.
Only heed thou worship God;
Else thou stalkest on thy sod,
Puppet-god of picture-world,
For thy foolish gaze unfurled;
Mirror-thing of things below thee.
Thy own self can never know thee;
Not a high and holy actor;
A reflector, and refractor;
Helpless in thy gift of light,
Self-consuming into night.

Lasting yet the roseate glory!
I must hasten with my story
Of the little room's true features,
Seldom seen by mortal creatures;
Lest my prophet-vision fading
Leave me in the darkness wading.
What are those upon the wall,
Ranged in rows symmetrical?
They are books, an owl would say;
But the owl's night is the day:
Of these too, if you have patience,
I can give you revelations:
Through the walls of Time and Sight,
Doors they are to the Infinite;
Through the limits that embrace us,
Openings to the eternal spaces,
Round us all the noisy day,
Full of silences alway;
Round us all the darksome night,
Ever full of awful light:
And, though closed, may still remind us
There is mystery behind us.

That, my friend? Now, it is