A Hidden Life and Other Poems. George MacDonald

      Another song in a low minor key

      From awful holy calm, as this from grief,

      I weave, a silken flower, into my web,

      That goes straight on, with simply crossing lines,

      Floating few colours upward to the sight.

              Ah, holy midnight of the soul,

                When stars alone are high;

              When winds are dead, or at their goal,

                And sea-waves only sigh!

              Ambition faints from out the will;

                Asleep sad longing lies;

              All hope of good, all fear of ill,

                All need of action dies;

              Because God is; and claims the life

                He kindled in thy brain;

              And thou in Him, rapt far from strife,

                Diest and liv'st again.

      It was a changed and wintry time to him;

      But visited by April airs and scents,

      That came with sudden presence, unforetold;

      As brushed from off the outer spheres of spring

      In the new singing world, by winds of sighs,

      That wandering swept across the glad To be.

      Strange longings that he never knew till now,

      A sense of want, yea of an infinite need,

      Cried out within him—rather moaned than cried.

      And he would sit a silent hour and gaze

      Upon the distant hills with dazzling snow

      Upon their peaks, and thence, adown their sides,

      Streaked vaporous, or starred in solid blue.

      And then a shadowy sense arose in him,

      As if behind those world-inclosing hills,

      There sat a mighty woman, with a face

      As calm as life, when its intensity

      Pushes it nigh to death, waiting for him,

      To make him grand for ever with a kiss,

      And send him silent through the toning worlds.

      The father saw him waning. The proud sire

      Beheld his pride go drooping in the cold

      Down, down to the warm earth; and gave God thanks

      That he was old. But evermore the son

      Looked up and smiled as he had heard strange news,

      Across the waste, of primrose-buds and flowers.

      Then again to his father he would come

      Seeking for comfort, as a troubled child,

      And with the same child's hope of comfort there.

      Sure there is one great Father in the heavens,

      Since every word of good from fathers' lips

      Falleth with such authority, although

      They are but men as we: God speaks in them.

      So this poor son who neared the unknown death,

      Took comfort in his father's tenderness,

      And made him strong to die. One day he came,

      And said: "What think you, father, is it hard,

      This dying?" "Well, my boy," he said, "We'll try

      And make it easy with the present God.

      But, as I judge, though more by hope than sight,

      It seemeth harder to the lookers on,

      Than him that dieth. It may be, each breath,

      That they would call a gasp, seems unto him

      A sigh of pleasure; or, at most, the sob

      Wherewith the unclothed spirit, step by step,

      Wades forth into the cool eternal sea.

      I think, my boy, death has two sides to it,

      One sunny, and one dark; as this round earth

      Is every day half sunny and half dark.

      We on the dark side call the mystery death;

      They on the other, looking down in light,

      Wait the glad birth, with other tears than ours."

      "Be near me, father, when I die;" he said.

      "I will, my boy, until a better sire

      Takes your hand out of mine, and I shall say:

      I give him back to thee; Oh! love him, God;

      For he needs more than I can ever be.

      And then, my son, mind and be near in turn,

      When my time comes; you in the light beyond,

      And knowing all about it; I all dark."

      And so the days went on, until the green

      Shone through the snow in patches, very green:

      For, though the snow was white, yet the green shone.

      And hope of life awoke within his heart;

      For the spring drew him, warm, soft, budding spring,

      With promises. The father better knew.

      God, give us heaven. Remember our poor hearts.

      We never grasp the zenith of the time;

      We find no spring, except in winter prayers.

      Now he, who strode a king across his fields,

      Crept slowly through the breathings of the spring;

      And sometimes wept in secret, that the earth,

      Which dwelt so near his heart with all its suns,

      And moons, and maidens, soon would lie afar

      Across some unknown, sure-dividing waste.

      Yet think not, though I fall upon the sad,

      And lingering listen to the fainting tones,

      Before I strike new chords that seize the old

      And waft their essence up the music-stair—

      Think not that he was always sad, nor dared

      To look the blank unknown full in the void:

      For he had hope in God, the growth of years,

      Ponderings, and aspirations from a child,

      And prayers and readings and repentances.

      Something within him ever sought to come

      At peace with something deeper in him still.

      Some sounds sighed ever for a harmony

      With