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

And like a sponge drink the divine sunbeams.

           What resolution then, strong, swift, and high!

           What pure devotion, or to live or die!

           And in my sleep, what true, what perfect dreams!

25

           There is a misty twilight of the soul,

           A sickly eclipse, low brooding o'er a man,

           When the poor brain is as an empty bowl,

           And the thought-spirit, weariful and wan,

           Turning from that which yet it loves the best,

           Sinks moveless, with life-poverty opprest:—

           Watch then, O Lord, thy feebly glimmering coal.

26

           I cannot think; in me is but a void;

           I have felt much, and want to feel no more;

           My soul is hungry for some poorer fare—

           Some earthly nectar, gold not unalloyed:—

           The little child that's happy to the core,

           Will leave his mother's lap, run down the stair,

           Play with the servants—is his mother annoyed?

27

           I would not have it so. Weary and worn,

           Why not to thee run straight, and be at rest?

           Motherward, with toy new, or garment torn,

           The child that late forsook her changeless breast,

           Runs to home's heart, the heaven that's heavenliest:

           In joy or sorrow, feebleness or might,

           Peace or commotion, be thou, Father, my delight.

28

           The thing I would say, still comes forth with doubt

           And difference:—is it that thou shap'st my ends?

           Or is it only the necessity

           Of stubborn words, that shift sluggish about,

           Warping my thought as it the sentence bends?—

           Have thou a part in it, O Lord, and I

           Shall say a truth, if not the thing I try.

29

           Gather my broken fragments to a whole,

           As these four quarters make a shining day.

           Into thy basket, for my golden bowl,

           Take up the things that I have cast away

           In vice or indolence or unwise play.

           Let mine be a merry, all-receiving heart,

           But make it a whole, with light in every part.

      MARCH

1

           THE song birds that come to me night and morn,

           Fly oft away and vanish if I sleep,

           Nor to my fowling-net will one return:

           Is the thing ever ours we cannot keep?—

           But their souls go not out into the deep.

           What matter if with changed song they come back?

           Old strength nor yet fresh beauty shall they lack.

2

           Gloriously wasteful, O my Lord, art thou!

           Sunset faints after sunset into the night,

           Splendorously dying from thy window-sill—

           For ever. Sad our poverty doth bow

           Before the riches of thy making might:

           Sweep from thy space thy systems at thy will—

           In thee the sun sets every sunset still.

3

           And in the perfect time, O perfect God,

           When we are in our home, our natal home,

           When joy shall carry every sacred load,

           And from its life and peace no heart shall roam,

           What if thou make us able to make like thee—

           To light with moons, to clothe with greenery,

           To hang gold sunsets o'er a rose and purple sea!

4

           Then to his neighbour one may call out, "Come!

           Brother, come hither—I would show you a thing;"

           And lo, a vision of his imagining,

           Informed of thought which else had rested dumb,

           Before the neighbour's truth-delighted eyes,

           In the great æther of existence rise,

           And two hearts each to each the closer cling!

5

           We make, but thou art the creating core.

           Whatever thing I dream, invent, or feel,

           Thou art the heart of it, the atmosphere.

           Thou art inside all love man ever bore;

           Yea, the love itself, whatever thing be dear.

           Man calls his dog, he follows at his heel,

           Because thou first art love, self-caused, essential, mere.

6

           This day be with me, Lord, when I go forth,

           Be nearer to me than I am able to ask.

           In merriment, in converse, or in task,

           Walking the street, listening to men of worth,

           Or greeting such as only talk and bask,

           Be thy thought still my waiting soul around,

           And if He come, I shall be watching found.

7

           What if, writing, I always seem to leave

           Some better thing, or better way, behind,

           Why should I therefore fret at all, or grieve!

           The worse I drop, that I the better find;

           The best is only in thy perfect mind.

           Fallen threads I will not search for—I will weave.

           Who makes the mill-wheel backward strike to grind!

8

           Be with me, Lord. Keep me beyond all prayers:

           For more than all my prayers my need of thee,

           And thou beyond all need, all unknown cares;

           What the heart's dear imagination dares,

           Thou dost transcend in measureless majesty