George MacDonald Poems

Mourn not, my friends, that we are growing old:
A fresher birth brings every new year in.
Years are Christ's napkins to wipe off the sin.
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1.
WE are a shadow and a shining, we!
One moment nothing seems but what we see,
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Gray clouds my heaven have covered o'er;
My sea ebbs fast, no more to flow;
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When I look back upon my life nigh spent,
Nigh spent, although the stream as yet flows on,
I more of follies than of sins repent,
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Ave! Once more touch the strings
That Memory may feed upon the strain,
And over-live again
The days,
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We doubt the word that tells us: Ask,
And ye shall have your prayer;
We turn our thoughts as to a task,
With will constrained and rare.
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A tattered soldier, gone the glow and gloss,
With wounds half healed, and sorely trembling knee,
Homeward I come, to claim no victory-cross:
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I know what beauty is, for thou
Hast set the world within my heart;
Of me thou madest it a part;
I never loved it more than now.
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Sometimes, O Lord, thou lightest in my head
A lamp that well might pharos all the lands;
Anon the light will neither rise nor spread:
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My heart is full of inarticulate pain,
And beats laborious. Cold ungenial looks
Invade my sanctuary. Men of gain,
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