A Hidden Life and Other Poems. George MacDonald

      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,

      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