Cleaning The Windows.

Wash the window; rub it dry;
    Make the ray-door clean and bright:
He who lords it in the sky
    Loves on cottage floors to light!

Looking over sea and beck,
    Mountain-forest, orchard-bloom,
He can spy the smallest speck
    Anywhere about the room!

See how bright his torch is blazing
    In the heart of mother's store!
Strange! I never saw him gazing
    So into that press before!

Ah, I see!--the wooden pane
    In the window, dull and dead,
Father called its loss a gain,
    And a glass one put instead!

What a difference it makes!
    How it melts the filmy gloom!
What a little more it takes
    Much to brighten up a room!

There I spy a dusty streak!
    There a corner not quite clean!
There a cobweb! There the sneak
    Of a spider, watching keen!

Lord of suns, and eyes that see,
    Shine into me, see and show;
Leave no darksome spot in me
    Where thou dost not shining go.

Fill my spirit full of eyes,
    Doors of light in every part;
Open windows to the skies
    That no moth corrupt my heart.

George MacDonald

George MacDonald (1824–1905) was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister best known for his fairy tales and fantasy novels. He was a pioneer in the fantasy genre, influencing notable writers such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. His major works include "Phantastes" and "Lilith," as well as numerous poems and other literary works. MacDonald's writings are characterized by their imaginative qualities and deep spiritual insight.

George MacDonald

The Diary Of An Old Soul. - February.

George MacDonald, Simple Poetry

Translations. - A Song Of Thanksgiving For The Benefits Most Great Which God Hath Shown To Us In Christ. (Luther's Song-Book.)

George MacDonald, Simple Poetry

Song Of The Waiting Dead

George MacDonald, Simple Poetry

Death.

George MacDonald, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Death And Birth

'Tis the midnight hour; I heard
The Abbey-bell give out the word.
Seldom is the lamp-ray shed
On some dwarfed foot-farer's head
In the deep and narrow street
Lying ditch-like at my feet
Where I stand at lattice high
Downward gazing listlessly
From my house upon the rock,
Peak of earth's foundation-block.

    There her windows, every story,
Shine with far-off nebulous glory!
Round her in that luminous cloud
Stars obedient press and crowd,
She the centre of all gazing,
She the sun her planets dazing!
In her eyes' victorious lightning
Some are paling, some are brightening:
Those on which they gracious turn,
Stars combust, all tenfold burn;
Those from which they look away
Listless roam in twilight gray!
When on her my looks I be...

George MacDonald

Sweeping The Floor.

Sweep and sweep and sweep the floor,
    Sweep the dust, pick up the pin;
Make it clean from fire to door,
    Clean for father to come in!

Mother said that God goes sweeping,
    Looking, sweeping with a broom,
All the time that we are sleeping,
    For a shilling in the room:

Did he drop it out of glory,
    Walking far above the birds?
Or did parson make the story
    For the thinking afterwards?

If I were the swept-for shilling
    I would hearken through the gloom;
Roll out fast, and fall down willing
    Right before the sweeping broom!

George MacDonald

The Prism

I.

A pool of broken sunbeams lay
    Upon the passage-floor,
Radiant and rich, profound and gay
    As ever diamond bore.

Small, flitting hands a handkerchief
    Spread like a cunning trap:
Prone lay the gorgeous jewel-sheaf
    In the glory-gleaner's lap!

Deftly she folded up the prize,
    With lovely avarice;
Like one whom having had made wise,
    She bore it off in bliss.

But ah, when for her prisoned gems
    She peeped, to prove them there,
No glories broken from their stems
    Lay in the kerchief bare!

For still, outside the nursery door,
    The bright persistency,
A molten diadem on the floor,
    Lay burning wondrously.

II.

How oft have I laid fold from fold
    And peere...

George MacDonald

The Lost House

Out of thy door I run to do the thing
    That calls upon me. Straight the wind of words
Whoops from mine ears the sounds of them that sing
About their work, "My God, my father-king!"

I turn in haste to see thy blessed door,
    But, lo, a cloud of flies and bats and birds,
    And stalking vapours, and vague monster-herds
        Have risen and lighted, rushed and swollen between!

Ah me! the house of peace is there no more.
Was it a dream then?--Walls, fireside, and floor,
    And sweet obedience, loving, calm, and free,
        Are vanished--gone as they had never been!

    I labour groaning. Comes a sudden sheen!--
And I am kneeling at my father's knee,
Sighing with joy, and hoping utterly.

George MacDonald

My Room

To G. E. M.

    'Tis a little room, my friend--
Baby walks from end to end;
All the things look sadly real
This hot noontide unideal;
Vaporous heat from cope to basement
All you see outside the casement,
Save one house all mud-becrusted,
And a street all drought-bedusted!
There behold its happiest vision,
Trickling water-cart's derision!
Shut we out the staring space,
Draw the curtains in its face!

    Close the eyelids of the room,
Fill it with a scarlet gloom:
Lo, the walls with warm flush dyed!
Lo, the ceiling glorified,
As when, lost in tenderest pinks,
White rose on the red rose thinks!
But beneath, a hue right rosy,
Red as a geranium-posy,
Stains the air with power estranging,
Known with unknown clouding, changin...

George MacDonald

The Sparrow

O Lord, I cannot but believe
The birds do sing thy praises then, when they sing to one another,
And they are lying seed-sown land when the winter makes them grieve,
Their little bosoms breeding songs for the summer to unsmother!

If thou hadst finished me, O Lord,
Nor left out of me part of that great gift that goes to singing,
I sure had known the meaning high of the songster's praising word,
Had known upon what thoughts of thee his pearly talk he was stringing!

I should have read the wisdom hid
In the storm-inspired melody of thy thrush's bosom solemn:
I should not then have understood what thy free spirit did
To make the lark-soprano mount like to a geyser-column!

I think I almost understand
Thy owl, his muffled swiftness, moon-round eyes, and intoned hoo...

George MacDonald