A Hidden Life and Other Poems - George MacDonald

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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;

      And had no ears for this poor needy hour,

      That up and down the centuries doth go,

      Like beggar boy that wanders through the streets,

      With hand held out to any passer by;

      And yet God made it, and its many cries.

      He used to say: "I take the work that comes

      All ready to my hand. The lever set,

      I grasp and heave withal. Or rather, I

      Love where I live, and yield me to the will

      That made the needs about me. It may be

      I find them nearer to my need of work

      Than any other choice. I would not choose

      To lack a relish for the thing that God

      Thinks worth. Among my own I will be good;

      A helper to all those that look to me.

      This farm is God's, as much as yonder town;

      These men and maidens, kine and horses, his;

      And need his laws of truth made rules of fact;

      Or else the earth is not redeemed from ill."

      He spoke not often; but he ruled and did.

      No ill was suffered there by man or beast

      That he could help; no creature fled from him;

      And when he slew, 'twas with a sudden death,

      Like God's benignant lightning. For he knew

      That God doth make the beasts, and loves them well,

      And they are sacred. Sprung from God as we,

      They are our brethren in a lower kind;

      And in their face he saw the human look.

      They said: "Men look like different animals;"

      But he: "The animals are like to men,

      Some one, and some another." Cruelty,

      He said, would need no other fiery hell,

      Than that the ghosts of the sad beasts should come,

      And crowding, silent, all their heads one way,

      Stare the ill man to madness.

                                   By degrees,

      They knew not how, men trusted in him. When

      He spoke, his word had all the force of deeds

      That lay unsaid within him. To be good

      Is more than holy words or definite acts;

      Embodying itself unconsciously

      In simple forms of human helpfulness,

      And understanding of the need that prays.

      And when he read the weary tales of crime,

      And wretchedness, and white-faced children, sad

      With hunger, and neglect, and cruel words,

      He would walk sadly for an afternoon,

      With head down-bent,

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