The Complete Poetical Works of George MacDonald. George MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ O God, forgive, I pray:

       The heart thou holdest in thy hand

       Loves more this sunny day!

      I see the hundred thousand wait

       Around the radiant throne:

       Ah, what a dreary, gilded state!

       What crowds of beings lone!

      I do not care for singing psalms;

       I tire of good men's talk;

       To me there is no joy in palms,

       Or white-robed, solemn walk.

      I love to hear the wild winds meet,

       The wild old winds at night;

       To watch the cold stars flash and beat,

       The feathery snow alight.

      I love all tales of valiant men,

       Of women good and fair:

       If I were rich and strong, ah, then

       I would do something rare!

      But for thy temple in the sky,

       Its pillars strong and white—

       I cannot love it, though I try,

       And long with all my might.

      Sometimes a joy lays hold on me,

       And I am speechless then;

       Almost a martyr I could be,

       To join the holy men.

      Straightway my heart is like a clod,

       My spirit wrapt in doubt:—

       A pillar in the house of God, And never more go out!

      No more the sunny, breezy morn;

       All gone the glowing noon;

       No more the silent heath forlorn,

       The wan-faced waning moon!

      My God, this heart will never burn,

       Must never taste thy joy!

       Even Jesus' face is calm and stern:

       I am a hapless boy!

      * * * * *

      II.

      I read good books. My heart despairs.

       In vain I try to dress

       My soul in feelings like to theirs—

       These men of holiness.

      My thoughts, like doves, abroad I fling

       Into a country fair:

       Wind-baffled, back, with tired wing,

       They to my ark repair.

      Or comes a sympathetic thrill

       With long-departed saint,

       A feeble dawn, without my will,

       Of feelings old and quaint,

      As of a church's holy night,

       With low-browed chapels round,

       Where common sunshine dares not light

       On the too sacred ground,—

      One glance at sunny fields of grain,

       One shout of child at play—

       A merry melody drives amain

       The one-toned chant away!

      My spirit will not enter here

       To haunt the holy gloom;

       I gaze into a mirror mere,

       A mirror, not a room.

      And as a bird against the pane

       Will strike, deceived sore,

       I think to enter, but remain

       Outside the closed door.

      Oh, it will call for many a sigh

       If it be what it claims—

       This book, so unlike earth and sky,

       Unlike man's hopes and aims!—

      To me a desert parched and bare—

       In which a spirit broods

       Whose wisdom I would gladly share

       At cost of many goods!

      * * * * *

      III.

      O hear me, God! O give me joy

       Such as thy chosen feel;

       Have pity on a wretched boy;

       My heart is hard as steel.

      I have no care for what is good;

       Thyself I do not love;

       I relish not this Bible-food;

       My heaven is not above.

      Thou wilt not hear: I come no more;

       Thou heedest not my woe.

       With sighs and tears my heart is sore.

       Thou comest not: I go.

      * * * * *

      IV.

      Once more I kneel. The earth is dark,

       And darker yet the air;

       If light there be, 'tis but a spark

       Amid a world's despair—

      One hopeless hope there yet may be

       A God somewhere to hear;

       The God to whom I bend my knee—

       A God with open ear.

      I know that men laugh still to scorn

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