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

/> This my form may come to Thine:
Gently thus I lift Thee down;
Lovingly, O marble cold,
Thee with human hands I fold,
And I set Thee thus aside,
Human rightly deified!
God, by manhood glorified!

[Sidenote: Nothing less than the Cross would satisfy the Godhead
for its own assertion and vindication. ]

Thinkest thou that Christ did stand
Shutting God from out the land?
Hiding from His children's eyes
Dayspring in the holy skies?
Stood He not with loving eye
On one side, to bring us nigh?
"Doth this form offend you still?
God is greater than you see;
If you seek to do His will,
He will lead you unto me."
Then the tender Brother's grace
Leads us to the Father's face.
As His parting form withdrew,
Burst His Spirit on the view.
Form completest, radiant white,
Sometimes must give way for light,
When the eye, itself obscure,
Stead of form is needing cure:
Washed at morning's sunny brim
From the mists that make it dim,
Set thou up the form again,
And its light will reach the brain.
For the Truth is Form allowed,
For the glory is the cloud;
But the single eye alone
Sees with light that is its own,
From primeval fountain-head
Flowing ere the sun was made;
Such alone can be regaled
With the Truth by form unveiled;
To such an eye his form will be
Gushing orb of glory free.

[Sidenote: Striving .]

Stroke on stroke! The frescoed plaster
Clashes downward, fast and faster.
Now the first stone disengages;
Now a second that for ages
Bested there as in a rock
Yields to the repeated shock.
Hark! I heard an outside stone
Down the rough rock rumbling thrown!

[Sidenote: Longing .]

Haste thee, haste! I am athirst
To behold young Morning, nurst
In the lap of ancient Night,
Growing visibly to light.
There! thank God! a faint light-beam!
There! God bless that little stream
Of cool morning air that made
A rippling on my burning head!

[Sidenote: Alive unto God. ]

Now! the stone is outward flung,
And the Universe hath sprung
Inward on my soul and brain!

[Sidenote: A New Life .]

I am living once again!
Out of sorrow, out of strife,
Spring aloft to higher life;
Parted by no awful cleft
From the life that I have left;
Only I myself grown purer
See its good so much the surer,
See its ill with hopeful eye,
Frown more seldom, oftener sigh.
Dying truly is no loss,
For to wings hath grown the cross.
Dear the pain of giving up,
If Christ enter in and sup.
Joy to empty all the heart,
That there may be room for Him!
Faintness cometh, soon to part,
For He fills me to the brim.
I have all things now and more;
All that I possessed before;
In a calmer holier sense,
Free from vanity's pretence;
And a consciousness of bliss,
Wholly mine, by being His.
I am nearer to the end
Whither all my longings tend.
His love in all the bliss I had,
Unknown, was that which made me glad;
And will shine with glory more,
In the forms it took before.

[Sidenote: Beauty returned with Truth. ]

Lo! the eastern vapours crack
With the sunshine at their back!
Lo! the eastern glaciers shine
In the dazzling light divine!
Lo! the far-off mountains lifting
Snow-capt summits in the sky!
Where all night the storm was drifting,
Whiteness resteth silently!
Glorious mountains! God's own places!
Surely man upon their faces
Climbeth upward nearer Thee
Dwelling in Light's Obscurity!
Mystic wonders! hope and fear
Move together at your sight.

[Sidenote: Silence and Thought. ]

That one precipice, whose height
I can mete by inches here,
Is a thousand fathoms quite.
I must journey to your foot,
Grow on you as on my root;
Feed upon your silent speech,
Awful air, and wind, and thunder,
Shades, and solitudes, and wonder;

[Sidenote: The Realities of existence must seize on his soul .]

Distances that lengthening roll
Onward, on, beyond Thought's reach,
Widening, widening on the view;
Till the silence touch my soul,
Growing calm and vast like you.
I will meet Christ on the mountains;
Dwell there with my God and Truth;

[Sidenote: Baptism .]

Drink cold water from their fountains,
Baptism of an inward youth.
Then return when years are by,
To teach a great humility;

[Sidenote: Future mission .]

To aspiring youth to show
What a hope to them is given:
Heaven and Earth at one to know;
On the Earth to live in Heaven;
Winning thus the hearts of Earth
To die into the Heavenly Birth.


EARLY POEMS.


LONGING.


Away from the city's herds!
Away from the noisy street!
Away from the storm of words,
Where hateful and hating meet!

Away from the vapour grey,
That like a boding of ill
Is blotting the morning gay,
And gathers and darkens still!

Away from the stupid book!
For, like the fog's weary rest,
With anger dull it fills each nook
Of my aching and misty breast.

Over some shining shore,
There hangeth a space of blue;
A parting 'mid thin clouds hoar
Where the sunlight is falling through.

The glad waves are kissing the shore
Rejoice, and tell it for ever;
The boat glides on, while its oar
Is flashing out of the river.

Oh to be there with thee!
Thou and I only, my love!
The sparkling, sands and the sea!
And the sunshine of God above!


MY EYES MAKE PICTURES.

"My eyes make pictures, when they are shut."
COLERIDGE.


Fair morn, I bring my greeting
To lofty skies, and pale,
Save where cloud-shreds are fleeting
Before the driving gale,
The weary branches tossing,
Careless of autumn's grief,
Shadow and sunlight crossing
On each earth-spotted leaf.

I will escape their grieving;
And so I close my eyes,
And see the light boat heaving
Where the billows fall and rise;
I see the sunlight glancing
Upon its silvery sail,
Where a youth's wild heart is dancing,
And a maiden growing pale.

And I am quietly pacing
The smooth stones o'er and o'er,
Where the merry waves are chasing
Each other to the shore.
Words come to me while listening
Where the rocks and waters meet,
And the little shells are glistening
In sand-pools at my feet.

Away! the white sail gleaming!
Again I close my eyes,
And the autumn light is streaming
From pale blue cloudless skies;
Upon the lone hill falling
'Mid the sound of heather-bells,
Where the running stream is calling
Unto the silent wells.

Along the pathway lonely,
My horse and I move slow;
No living thing, save only
The home-returning crow.
And the moon, so large, is peering
Up through the white cloud foam;
And I am gladly nearing
My father's house, my home.

As I were gently dreaming
The solemn trees look out;
The hills, the waters seeming
In still sleep round about;
And in my soul are ringing
Tones of a spirit-lyre,
As my beloved were singing
Amid a sister-choir.

If peace were in my spirit,
How oft I'd close my eyes,
And all the earth inherit,
And all the changeful skies!
Thus leave the sermon dreary,
Thus leave the lonely hearth;
No more a spirit weary-
A free one of the earth!


DEATH.


When, like a garment flung aside at night,
This body lies, or sculpture of cold rest;
When through its shaded windows comes no light,
And the white hands are folded on its breast;

How will it be with Me, its tenant now?
How shall I feel when first I wander out?
How look on tears from loved eyes falling? How
Look forth upon dim mysteries round about?

Shall I go forth, slow-floating like a mist,
Over the city with its crowded walls?
Over the trees and meadows where I list?
Over the mountains and their ceaseless falls?

Over the red cliffs and fantastic rocks;
Over the sea, far-down, fleeting away;
White sea-birds shining, and the billowy shocks
Heaving unheard their shore-besieging spray?

Or will a veil, o'er all material things
Slow-falling; hide them from the spirit's sight;
Even as the veil which the sun's radiance flings
O'er stars that had been shining all the night?

And will the spirit be entranced, alone,
Like one in an exalted opium-dream-
Time space, and all their varied dwellers gone;
And sunlight vanished, and all things that seem;

Thought only waking; thought that doth not own
The lapse of ages, or the change of place;
Thought, in which only that which is , is known;
The substance here, the form confined to space?

Or as a child that sobs itself to sleep,
Wearied with labour which the grown call play,
Waking in smiles as soon as morn doth peep,
Springs up to labour all the joyous day,

Shall we lie down, weary; and sleep, until
Our souls be cleansed by long and dreamless rest;
Till of repose we drink our thirsting fill,
And wake all peaceful, smiling, pure, and blest?

I know not-only know one needful thing:
God is; I shall be ever in His view;
I only need strength for the travailing,
Will for the work Thou givest me to do.


LESSONS FOR A CHILD.


I.

There breathes not a breath of the morning air,
But the spirit of Love is moving there;
Not a trembling leaf on the shadowy tree
Mingles with thousands in harmony;
But the Spirit of God doth make the sound,
And the thoughts of the insect that creepeth around.
And the sunshiny butterflies come and go,
Like beautiful thoughts moving to and fro;
And not a wave of their busy wings
Is unknown to the Spirit that moveth all things.
And the long-mantled moths, that sleep at noon,
And dance in the light of the mystic moon-
All have one being that loves them all;
Not a fly in the spider's web can fall,
But He cares for the spider, and cares for the fly;
And He cares for each little child's smile or sigh.
How it can be, I cannot know;
He is wiser than I; and it must be so.


II.

The tree-roots met in the spongy ground,
Looking where water lay;
Because they met, they twined around,
Embraced, and went their way.

Drop dashed on drop, as the rain-shower fell,
Yet they strove not, but joined together;
And they rose from the earth a bright clear well,
Singing in sunny weather.

Sound met sound in the wavy air;
They kissed as sisters true;
Yet, jostling not on their journey fair,
Each on its own path flew.

Wind met wind in a garden green;
Each for its own way pled;
And a trampling whirlwind danced between,
Till the flower of Love lay dead.


III.

To C.C.P.

The bird on the leafy tree,
The bird in the cloudy sky,
The fish in the wavy sea,
The stag on the mountain