The Complete Poetical Works of George MacDonald. George MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ well;

       My roll of ill with theirs upfurled,

       And cast in deepest hell;

      That God looked bounteously on one,

       Because on many men;

       As shone Judea's earthly sun

       On all the healed ten.

      No; thou must be a God to me

       As if but me were none;

       I such a perfect child to thee

       As if thou hadst but one.

      XXII.

      Oh, then, my Father, hast thou not

       A blessing just for me?

       Shall I be, barely, not forgot?—

       Never come home to thee?

      Hast thou no care for this one child,

       This thinking, living need?

       Or is thy countenance only mild,

       Thy heart not love indeed?

      For some eternal joy I pray,

       To make me strong and free;

       Yea, such a friend I need alway

       As thou alone canst be.

      Is not creative infinitude

       Able, in every man,

       To turn itself to every mood

       Since God man's life began?

      Art thou not each man's God—his own,

       With secret words between,

       As thou and he lived all alone,

       Insphered in silence keen?

      Ah, God, my heart is not the same

       As any heart beside;

       My pain is different, and my blame,

       My pity and my pride!

      My history thou know'st, my thoughts

       Different from other men's;

       Thou knowest all the sheep and goats

       That mingle in my pens.

      Thou knowest I a love might bring

       By none beside me due;

       One praiseful song at least might sing

       Which could not but be new.

      XXIII.

      Nor seek I thus to stand apart,

       In aught my kind above;

       My neighbour, ah, my troubled heart

       Must rest ere thee it love!

      If God love not, I have no care,

       No power to love, no hope.

       What is life here or anywhere?

       Or why with darkness cope?

      I scorn my own love's every sign,

       So feeble, selfish, low,

       If his love give no pledge that mine

       Shall one day perfect grow.

      But if I knew Thy love even such,

       As tender and intense

       As, tested by its human touch,

       Would satisfy my sense

      Of what a father never was

       But should be to his son,

       My heart would leap for joy, because

       My rescue was begun.

      Oh then my love, by thine set free,

       Would overflow thy men;

       In every face my heart would see

       God shining out again!

      There are who hold high festival

       And at the board crown Death:

       I am too weak to live at all

       Except I breathe thy breath.

      Show me a love that nothing bates,

       Absolute, self-severe—

       Even at Gehenna's prayerless gates

       I should not "taint with fear."

      XXIV.

      I cannot brook that men should say—

       Nor this for gospel take—

       That thou wilt hear me if I pray

       Asking for Jesus' sake.

      For love to him is not to me,

       And cannot lift my fate;

       The love is not that is not free,

       Perfect, immediate.

      Love is salvation: life without

       No moment can endure.

       Those sheep alone go in and out

       Who know thy love is pure.

      XXV.

      But what if God requires indeed,

       For cause yet unrevealed,

       Assent to one fixed form of creed,

       Such as I cannot yield?

      Has God made for Christ's sake a test— To take or leave the crust, That only he may have the best Who licks the serpent-dust?

      No, no; the words I will not say

       With the responding folk;

       I at his feet a heart would lay,

       Not shoulders for a yoke.

      He СКАЧАТЬ