A Hidden Life and Other Poems. George MacDonald

may see one truth,

       And, turning, see each others' faces shine.

       So he proposed the classics; and the youth

       Caught at the offer; and for many a night,

       When others lay and lost themselves in sleep,

       He groped his way with lexicon and rule,

       Through ancient deeds embalmed in Latin old,

       Or poet-woods alive with gracious forms;

       Wherein his knowledge of the English tongue

       (Through reading many books) much aided him—

       For the soul's language is the same in all.

       At length his progress, through the master's word,

       Proud of his pupil, reached the father's ears.

       Great joy arose within him, and he vowed,

       If caring, sparing would accomplish it,

       He should to college, and should have his fill

       Of that same learning.

      So to school he went,

       Instead of to the plough; and ere a year,

       He wore the scarlet gown with the close sleeves.

      Awkward at first, but with a dignity

       That soon found fit embodiment in speech

       And gesture and address, he made his way,

       Not seeking it, to the respect of youths,

       In whom respect is of the rarer gifts.

       Likewise by the consent of accidents,

       More than his worth, society, so called,

       In that great northern city, to its rooms

       Invited him. He entered. Dazzled first,

       Not only by the brilliance of the show,

       In lights and mirrors, gems, and crowded eyes;

       But by the surface lights of many minds

       Cut like rose-diamonds into many planes,

       Which, catching up the wandering rays of fact,

       Reflected, coloured, tossed them here and there,

       In varied brilliance, as if quite new-born

       From out the centre, not from off the face—

       Dazzled at first, I say, he soon began

       To see how little thought could sparkle well,

       And turn him, even in the midst of talk,

       Back to the silence of his homely toils.

       Around him still and ever hung an air

       Born of the fields, and plough, and cart, and scythe;

       A kind of clumsy grace, in which gay girls

       Saw but the clumsiness; while those with light,

       Instead of glitter, in their quiet eyes,

       Saw the grace too; yea, sometimes, when he talked,

       Saw the grace only; and began at last,

       As he sought none, to seek him in the crowd

       (After a maiden fashion), that they might

       Hear him dress thoughts, not pay poor compliments.

       Yet seldom thus was he seduced from toil;

       Or if one eve his windows showed no light,

       The next, they faintly gleamed in candle-shine,

       Till far into the morning. And he won

       Honours among the first, each session's close.

      And if increased familiarity

       With open forms of ill, not to be shunned

       Where youths of all kinds meet, endangered there

       A mind more willing to be pure than most—

       Oft when the broad rich humour of a jest,

       Did, with its breezy force, make radiant way

       For pestilential vapours following—

       Arose within his sudden silent mind,

       The maiden face that smiled and blushed on him;

       That lady face, insphered beyond his earth,

       Yet visible to him as any star

       That shines unwavering. I cannot tell

       In words the tenderness that glowed across

       His bosom—burned it clean in will and thought;

       "Shall that sweet face be blown by laughter rude

       Out of the soul where it has deigned to come,

       But will not stay what maidens may not hear?"

       He almost wept for shame, that those two thoughts

       Should ever look each other in the face,

       Meeting in his house. Thus he made to her, For love, an offering of purity.

      And if the homage that he sometimes found,

       New to the country lad, conveyed in smiles,

       Assents, and silent listenings when he spoke,

       Threatened yet more his life's simplicity;

       An antidote of nature ever came,

       Even nature's self. For, in the summer months,

       His former haunts and boyhood's circumstance

       Received him back within old influences.

       And he, too noble to despise the past,

       Too proud to be ashamed of manhood's toil,

       Too wise to fancy that a gulf lay wide

       Betwixt the labouring hand and thinking brain,

       Or that a workman was no gentleman,

       Because a workman, clothed himself again

       In his old garments, took the hoe or spade,

       Or sowing sheet, or covered in the grain,

       Smoothing with harrows what the plough had ridged.

       With ever fresher joy he hailed the fields,

       Returning still with larger powers of sight:

       Each time he knew them better than before,

       And yet their sweetest aspect was the old.

       His labour kept him true to life and fact,

       Casting out worldly judgments, false desires,

       And vain distinctions. Ever, at his toil,

       New thoughts arose; which, when still night awoke,

       He ever sought, like stars, with instruments;

       By science, or by wise philosophy,

       Bridging the gulf between them and the known;

       And thus preparing for the coming months,

       When in the time of snow, old Scotland's sons

       Reap wisdom in the silence of the year.

      His sire was proud of him; and, most of all,

       Because his learning did not make him proud.

       A wise man builds not much upon his lore.

       The neighbours asked what he would make his son.

       "I'll make a man of him," the old man said;

       "And for the rest, just what he likes himself.

       But as he is my only son, I think

       He'll keep the old farm joined to the old name;

       And I shall go to the churchyard content,