The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 2 - George MacDonald

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      By my finger-point away

      Through the vaporous, fumy air.

      Beyond the air, you see the dark?

      Beyond the dark, the dawning day?

      On its horizon, pray you, mark

      Something like a ruined heap

      Of worlds half-uncreated, that go back:

      Down all the grades through which they rose

      Up to harmonious life and law's repose,

      Back, slow, to the awful deep

      Of nothingness, mere being's lack:

      On its surface, lone and bare,

      Shapeless as a dumb despair,

      Formless, nameless, something lies:

      Can the vision in your eyes

      Its idea recognize?

        'Tis a poor lost soul, alack!—

      Half he lived some ages back;

      But, with hardly opened eyes,

      Thinking him already wise,

      Down he sat and wrote a book;

      Drew his life into a nook;

      Out of it would not arise

      To peruse the letters dim,

      Graven dark on his own walls;

      Those, he judged, were chance-led scrawls,

      Or at best no use to him.

      A lamp was there for reading these;

      This he trimmed, sitting at ease,

      For its aid to write his book,

      Never at his walls to look—

      Trimmed and trimmed to one faint spark

      Which went out, and left him dark.—

      I will try if he can hear

      Spirit words with spirit ear!

        Motionless thing! who once,

      Like him who cries to thee,

      Hadst thy place with thy shining peers,

      Thy changeful place in the changeless dance

      Issuing ever in radiance

      From the doors of the far eternity,

      With feet that glitter and glide and glance

      To the music-law that binds the free,

      And sets the captive at liberty—

      To the clang of the crystal spheres!

      O heart for love! O thirst to drink

      From the wells that feed the sea!

      O hands of truth, a human link

      'Twixt mine and the Father's knee!

      O eyes to see! O soul to think!

      O life, the brother of me!

      Has Infinitude sucked back all

      The individual life it gave?

      Boots it nothing to cry and call?

      Is thy form an empty grave?

        It heareth not, brothers, the terrible thing!

      Sounds no sense to its ear will bring!

      Let us away, 'tis no use to tarry;

      Love no light to its heart will carry!

      Sting it with words, it will never shrink;

      It will not repent, it cannot think!

      Hath God forgotten it, alas!

      Lost in eternity's lumber-room?

      Will the wind of his breathing never pass

      Over it through the insensate gloom?

      Like a frost-killed bud on a tombstone curled,

      Crumbling it lies on its crumbling world,

      Sightless and deaf, with never a cry,

      In the hell of its own vacuity!

        See, see yon angel crossing our flight

      Where the thunder vapours loom,

      From his upcast pinions flashing the light

      Of some outbreaking doom!

      Up, brothers! away! a storm is nigh!

      Smite we the wing up a steeper sky!

      What matters the hail or the clashing winds,

      The thunder that buffets, the lightning that blinds!

      We know by the tempest we do not lie

      Dead in the pits of eternity!

      THE THREE HORSES

      What shall I be?—I will be a knight

        Walled up in armour black,

      With a sword of sharpness, a hammer of might.

        And a spear that will not crack—

      So black, so blank, no glimmer of light

        Will betray my darkling track.

      Saddle my coal-black steed, my men,

        Fittest for sunless work;

      Old Night is steaming from her den,

        And her children gather and lurk;

      Bad things are creeping from the fen,

        And sliding down the murk.

      Let him go!—let him go! Let him plunge!—Keep away!

        He's a foal of the third seal's brood!

      Gaunt with armour, in grim array

        Of poitrel and frontlet-hood,

      Let him go, a living castle, away—

        Right for the evil wood.

      I and Ravenwing on the course,

        Heavy in fighting gear—

      Woe to the thing that checks our force,

        That meets us in career!

      Giant, enchanter, devil, or worse—

        What cares the couched spear!

      Slow through the trees zigzag I ride.

        See! the goblins!—to and

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