A Hidden Life and Other Poems. George MacDonald

Leaving my name amongst my fellow men,

       As safe, thank God, as if I bore it still."

       But sons are older than their sires full oft

       In the new world that cometh after this.

      So four years long his life went to and fro

       Betwixt the scarlet gown and rough blue coat;

       The garret study and the wide-floored barn;

       The wintry city, and the sunny fields.

       In each his quiet mind was well content,

       Because he was himself, where'er he was.

      Not in one channel flowed his seeking thoughts;

       To no profession did he ardent turn:

       He knew his father's wish—it was his own.

       "Why should a man," he said, "when knowledge grows,

       Leave therefore the old patriarchal life,

       And seek distinction in the noise of men?"

       And yet he turned his face on every side;

       Went with the doctors to the lecture-room,

       And saw the inner form of man laid bare;

       Went with the chymists, where the skilful hand,

       Revering laws higher than Nature's self,

       Makes Nature do again, before our eyes,

       And in a moment, what, in many years,

       And in the veil of vastness and lone deeps,

       She laboureth at alway, then best content

       When man inquires into her secret ways;

       Yea, turned his asking eye on every source

       Whence knowledge floweth for the hearts of men,

       Kneeling at some, and drinking freely there.

       And at the end, when he had gained the right

       To sit with covered head before the rank

       Of black-gowned senators; and all these men

       Were ready at a word to speed him on,

       Proud of their pupil, towards any goal

       Where he might fix his eye; he took his books,

       What little of his gown and cap remained,

       And, leaving with a sigh the ancient walls,

       With the old stony crown, unchanging, grey,

       Amidst the blandishments of airy Spring,

       He sought for life the lone ancestral farm.

      With simple gladness met him on the road

       His grey-haired father, elder brother now.

       Few words were spoken, little welcome said,

       But much was understood on either side.

       If with a less delight he brought him home

       Than he that met the prodigal returned,

       Yet with more confidence, more certain joy;

       And with the leaning pride that old men feel

       In young strong arms that draw their might from them,

       He led him to the house. His sister there,

       Whose kisses were not many, but whose eyes

       Were full of watchfulness and hovering love,

       Set him beside the fire in the old place,

       And heaped the table with best country fare.

       And when the night grew deep, the father rose,

       And led his son (who wondered why they went,

       And in the darkness made a tortuous path

       Through the corn-ricks) to an old loft, above

       The stable where his horses rested still.

       Entering, he saw some plan-pursuing hand

       Had been at work. The father, leading on

       Across the floor, heaped up with waiting grain,

       Opened a door. An unexpected light

       Flashed on them from a cheerful lamp and fire,

       That burned alone, as in a fairy tale.

       And lo! a little room, white-curtained bed,

       An old arm-chair, bookshelves, and writing desk,

       And some old prints of deep Virgilian woods,

       And one a country churchyard, on the walls.

       The young man stood and spoke not. The old love

       Seeking and finding incarnation new,

       Drew from his heart, as from the earth the sun,

       Warm tears. The good, the fatherly old man,

       Honouring in his son the simple needs

       Which his own bounty had begot in him,

       Thus gave him loneliness for silent thought,

       A simple refuge he could call his own.

       He grasped his hand and shook it; said good night,

       And left him glad with love. Faintly beneath,

       The horses stamped and drew the lengthening chain.

      Three sliding years, with gently blending change,

       Went round 'mid work of hands, and brain, and heart.

       He laboured as before; though when he would,

       With privilege, he took from hours of toil,

       When nothing pressed; and read within his room,

       Or wandered through the moorland to the hills;

       There stood upon the apex of the world,

       With a great altar-stone of rock beneath,

       And looked into the wide abyss of blue

       That roofed him round; and then, with steady foot,

       Descended to the world, and worthy cares.

      And on the Sunday, father, daughter, son

       Walked to the country church across the fields.

       It was a little church, and plain, almost

       To ugliness, yet lacking not a charm

       To him who sat there when a little boy.

       And the low mounds, with long grass waving on,

       Were quite as solemn as great marble tombs.

       And on the sunny afternoons, across

       This well-sown field of death, when forth they came

       With the last psalm still lingering in their hearts,

       He looked, and wondered where the heap would rise

       That rested on the arch of his dead breast.

       But in the gloom and rain he turned aside,

       And let the drops soak through the sinking clay—

       What mattered it to him?

      And as they walked

       Together home, the father loved to hear

       The new streams pouring from his son's clear well.

       The old man clung not only to the old;

       Nor bowed the young man only to the new;

       Yet as they walked, full often he would say,

       He liked not much what he had heard that morn.

       He said, these men believed the past alone;

       Honoured those Jewish times as they were Jews;