George MacDonald

Lost the little one roams about,
Pathway or shelter none can find;
Blinking stars are coming out;
No one is moving but the wind;…

His face, his words, her heart awoke;
Awoke her slumbering truth;
She judged him well; her bonds she broke,
And fled to him for ruth.With tears she washed his weary feet;…

The brother knew well the castle old,
Every closet, each outlook fair,
Every turret and bartizan bold,
Every chamber, garnished or bare.…

Hears't thou the dash of water, loud and hoarse,
With its perpetual tidings upward climb,
Struggling against the wind? Oh, how sublime!
For not in vain from its portentous source…

Forth from the city, with the load
That makes the trampling low,
They walk along the dreary road
That dust and ashes go.The other way, toward the gate…

Better to smell the violet
Than sip the glowing wine;
Better to hearken to a brook
Than watch a diamond shine.Better to have a loving friend…

He who by a mother's love
Made the wandering world his own,
Every year comes from above,
Comes the parted to atone,…

For years eighteen she, patient soul,
Her eyes had graveward sent;
Her earthly life was lapt in dole,
She was so bowed and bent.What words! To her? Who can be near?…

The lightning and thunder
They go and they come:
But the stars and the stillness
Are always at home.

A tattered soldier, gone the glow and gloss,
With wounds half healed, and sorely trembling knee,
Homeward I come, to claim no victory-cross:
I only faced the foe, and did not flee.

"Grant, Lord, her prayer, and let her go;
She crieth after us."
Nay, to the dogs ye cast it so;
Serve not a woman thus.Their pride, by condescension fed,…

On the far horizon there
Heaps of cloudy darkness rest;
Though the wind is in the air
There is stupor east and west.For the sky no change is making,…

Thrice-happy he whose heart, each new-born night,
When old-worn day hath vanished o'er earth's brim,
And he hath laid him down in chamber dim,
Straightway begins to tremble and grow bright,…

Strait is the path? He means we must not roam?
Yes; but the strait path leads into a boundless home.

Were I a skilful painter,
My pencil, not my pen,
Should try to teach thee hope and fear,
And who would blame me then?-…

I.Back shining from the pane, the fire
Seems outside in the snow:
So love set free from love's desire
Lights grief of long ago.The dark is thinned with snow-sheen fine,…

A child was born in sin and shame,
Wronged by his very birth,
Without a home, without a name,
One over in the earth.No wifely triumph he inspired,…

O Lord, if on the wind, at cool of day,
I heard one whispered word of mighty grace;
If through the darkness, as in bed I lay,
But once had come a hand upon my face;If but one sign that might not be mistook…

An angel saw me sitting by a brook,
Pleased with the silence, and the melodies
Of wind and water which did fall and rise:
He gently stirred his plumes and from them shook…

Here much and little shift and change,
With scale of need and time;
There more and less have meanings strange,
Which the world cannot rime.Sickness may be more hale than health,…

I have a fellowship with every shade
Of changing nature: with the tempest hour
My soul goes forth to claim her early dower
Of living princedom; and her wings have staid…

Why came in dreams the low-born man
Between thee and thy rest?
In vain thy whispered message ran,
Though justice was its quest!Did some young ignorant angel dare--…

There was an auld fisher, he sat by the wa',
An' luikit oot ower the sea;
The bairnies war playin, he smil't on them a',
But the tear stude in his e'e.An' it's-oh to win awa, awa!…

'My life is drear; walking I labour sore;
The heart in me is heavy as a stone;
And of my sorrows this the icy core:
Life is so wide, and I am all alone!'Thou did'st walk so, with heaven-born eyes down bent…