George Macdonald

I

RD him preach in Oxford years ago,

A snowy-haired and tender-faced apostle.

I watched the beech against the window blow,

And listened to the throstle.

And still a waving branch to memory

Those deepset eyes and drooping lids as

Upon too much by earthly

And wistful for their rest.

Still in the flutings of a thrush will

Words that upon us then but lightly fell,

Because they were as simple and

As some brief

Told by the Master to the hungry folk,

While the disciples murmured, but the

Wrote it again on Patmos, and it

Above the rage of Rome.