The Complete Poetical Works of George MacDonald. George MacDonald

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      And should the twilight darken into night,

       And sorrow grow to anguish, be thou strong;

       Thou art in God, and nothing can go wrong

       Which a fresh life-pulse cannot set aright.

       That thou dost know the darkness, proves the light.

       Weep if thou wilt, but weep not all too long;

       Or weep and work, for work will lead to song.

       But search thy heart, if, hid from all thy sight,

       There lies no cause for beauty's slow decay;

       If for completeness and diviner youth,

       And not for very love, thou seek'st the truth;

       If thou hast learned to give thyself away

       For love's own self, not for thyself, I say:

       Were God's love less, the world were lost, in sooth!

      SCENE I.—Summer. Julian's room. JULIAN is reading out of a book of poems.

      Love me, beloved; the thick clouds lower;

       A sleepiness filleth the earth and air;

       The rain has been falling for many an hour;

       A weary look the summer doth wear:

       Beautiful things that cannot be so;

       Loveliness clad in the garments of woe.

      Love me, beloved; I hear the birds;

       The clouds are lighter; I see the blue;

       The wind in the leaves is like gentle words

       Quietly passing 'twixt me and you;

       The evening air will bathe the buds

       With the soothing coolness of summer floods.

      Love me, beloved; for, many a day,

       Will the mist of the morning pass away;

       Many a day will the brightness of noon

       Lead to a night that hath lost her moon;

       And in joy or in sadness, in autumn or spring,

       Thy love to my soul is a needful thing.

      Love me, beloved; for thou mayest lie

       Dead in my sight, 'neath the same blue sky;

       Love me, O love me, and let me know

       The love that within thee moves to and fro;

       That many a form of thy love may be

       Gathered around thy memory.

      Love me, beloved; for I may lie

       Dead in thy sight, 'neath the same blue sky;

       The more thou hast loved me, the less thy pain,

       The stronger thy hope till we meet again;

       And forth on the pathway we do not know,

       With a load of love, my soul would go.

      Love me, beloved; for one must lie

       Motionless, lifeless, beneath the sky;

       The pale stiff lips return no kiss

       To the lips that never brought love amiss;

       And the dark brown earth be heaped above

       The head that lay on the bosom of love.

      Love me, beloved; for both must lie

       Under the earth and beneath the sky;

       The world be the same when we are gone;

       The leaves and the waters all sound on;

       The spring come forth, and the wild flowers live,

       Gifts for the poor man's love to give;

       The sea, the lordly, the gentle sea,

       Tell the same tales to others than thee;

       And joys, that flush with an inward morn,

       Irradiate hearts that are yet unborn;

       A youthful race call our earth their own,

       And gaze on its wonders from thought's high throne;

       Embraced by fair Nature, the youth will embrace.

       The maid beside him, his queen of the race;

       When thou and I shall have passed away

       Like the foam-flake thou looked'st on yesterday.

      Love me, beloved; for both must tread

       On the threshold of Hades, the house of the dead;

       Where now but in thinkings strange we roam,

       We shall live and think, and shall be at home;

       The sights and the sounds of the spirit land

       No stranger to us than the white sea-sand,

       Than the voice of the waves, and the eye of the moon,

       Than the crowded street in the sunlit noon.

       I pray thee to love me, belov'd of my heart;

       If we love not truly, at death we part;

       And how would it be with our souls to find

       That love, like a body, was left behind!

      Love me, beloved; Hades and Death

       Shall vanish away like a frosty breath;

       These hands, that now are at home in thine,

       Shall clasp thee again, if thou still art mine;

       And thou shall be mine, my spirit's bride,

       In the ceaseless flow of eternity's tide,

       If the truest love that thy heart can know

       Meet the truest love that from mine can flow.

       Pray God, beloved, for thee and me,

       That our souls may be wedded eternally.

      [He closes the book, and is silent for some moments.]

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