A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul. George MacDonald

Sometimes, hard-trying, it seems I cannot pray—

           For doubt, and pain, and anger, and all strife.

           Yet some poor half-fledged prayer-bird from the nest

           May fall, flit, fly, perch—crouch in the bowery breast

           Of the large, nation-healing tree of life;—

           Moveless there sit through all the burning day,

           And on my heart at night a fresh leaf cooling lay.

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           My harvest withers. Health, my means to live—

           All things seem rushing straight into the dark.

           But the dark still is God. I would not give

           The smallest silver-piece to turn the rush

           Backward or sideways. Am I not a spark

           Of him who is the light?—Fair hope doth flush

           My east.—Divine success—Oh, hush and hark!

16

           Thy will be done. I yield up everything.

           "The life is more than meat"—then more than health;

           "The body more than raiment"—then than wealth;

           The hairs I made not, thou art numbering.

           Thou art my life—I the brook, thou the spring.

           Because thine eyes are open, I can see;

           Because thou art thyself, 'tis therefore I am me.

17

           No sickness can come near to blast my health;

           My life depends not upon any meat;

           My bread comes not from any human tilth;

           No wings will grow upon my changeless wealth;

           Wrong cannot touch it, violence or deceit;

           Thou art my life, my health, my bank, my barn—

           And from all other gods thou plain dost warn.

18

           Care thou for mine whom I must leave behind;

           Care that they know who 'tis for them takes care;

           Thy present patience help them still to bear;

           Lord, keep them clearing, growing, heart and mind;

           In one thy oneness us together bind;

           Last earthly prayer with which to thee I cling—

           Grant that, save love, we owe not anything.

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           'Tis well, for unembodied thought a live,

           True house to build—of stubble, wood, nor hay;

           So, like bees round the flower by which they thrive,

           My thoughts are busy with the informing truth,

           And as I build, I feed, and grow in youth—

           Hoping to stand fresh, clean, and strong, and gay,

           When up the east comes dawning His great day.

20

           Thy will is truth—'tis therefore fate, the strong.

           Would that my will did sweep full swing with thine!

           Then harmony with every spheric song,

           And conscious power, would give sureness divine.

           Who thinks to thread thy great laws' onward throng,

           Is as a fly that creeps his foolish way

           Athwart an engine's wheels in smooth resistless play.

21

           Thou in my heart hast planted, gardener divine,

           A scion of the tree of life: it grows;

           But not in every wind or weather it blows;

           The leaves fall sometimes from the baby tree,

           And the life-power seems melting into pine;

           Yet still the sap keeps struggling to the shine,

           And the unseen root clings cramplike unto thee.

22

           Do thou, my God, my spirit's weather control;

           And as I do not gloom though the day be dun,

           Let me not gloom when earth-born vapours roll

           Across the infinite zenith of my soul.

           Should sudden brain-frost through the heart's summer run,

           Cold, weary, joyless, waste of air and sun,

           Thou art my south, my summer-wind, my all, my one.

23

           O Life, why dost thou close me up in death?

           O Health, why make me inhabit heaviness?—

           I ask, yet know: the sum of this distress,

           Pang-haunted body, sore-dismayed mind,

           Is but the egg that rounds the winged faith;

           When that its path into the air shall find,

           My heart will follow, high above cold, rain, and wind.

24

           I can no more than lift my weary eyes;

           Therefore I lift my weary eyes—no more.

           But my eyes pull my heart, and that, before

           'Tis well awake, knocks where the conscience lies;

           Conscience runs quick to the spirit's hidden door:

           Straightway, from every sky-ward window, cries

           Up to the Father's listening ears arise.

25

           Not in my fancy now I search to find thee;

           Not in its loftiest forms would shape or bind thee;

           I cry to one whom I can never know,

           Filling me with an infinite overflow;

           Not to a shape that dwells within my heart,

           Clothed in perfections love and truth assigned thee,

           But to the God thou knowest that thou art.

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           Not, Lord, because I have done well or ill;

           Not that my mind looks up to thee clear-eyed;

           Not that it struggles in fast cerements tied;

           Not that I need thee daily sorer still;

           Not that I wretched, wander from thy will;

           Not now for any cause to thee I cry,

           But this, that thou art thou, and here am I.

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           Yestereve, Death came, and knocked at my thin