Smoke

Lord, I have laid my heart upon thy altar
    But cannot get the wood to burn;
It hardly flares ere it begins to falter
    And to the dark return.

Old sap, or night-fallen dew, makes damp the fuel;
    In vain my breath would flame provoke;
Yet see--at every poor attempt's renewal
    To thee ascends the smoke!

'Tis all I have--smoke, failure, foiled endeavour,
    Coldness and doubt and palsied lack:
Such as I have I send thee!--perfect Giver,
    Send thou thy lightning back.

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

Annie She's Dowie

George MacDonald, Simple Poetry

Song-Sermon

George MacDonald, Simple Poetry

Christmas, 1884

George MacDonald, Simple Poetry

A Prisoner

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.

The Lost Soul

    Look! look there!
Send your eyes across the gray
By my finger-point away
Through the vaporous, fumy air.
Beyond the air, you see the dark?
Beyond the dark, the dawning day?
On its horizon, pray you, mark
Something like a ruined heap
Of worlds half-uncreated, that go back:
Down all the grades through which they rose
Up to harmonious life and law's repose,
Back, slow, to the awful deep
Of nothingness, mere being's lack:
On its surface, lone and bare,
Shapeless as a dumb despair,
Formless, nameless, something lies:
Can the vision in your eyes
Its idea recognize?

    'Tis a poor lost soul, alack!--
Half he lived some ages back;
But, with hardly opened eyes,
Thinking him already wise,
Down he sat and wrote a book;
Drew h...

George MacDonald

The Burnt Offering.

Is there a man on earth, who, every night,
When the day hath exhausted each strong limb,
Lays him upon his bed in chamber dim,
And his heart straightway trembling with delight,
Begins to burn up towards the vaulted height
Of the great peace that overshadows him?
Like flakes of fire his thoughts within him swim,
Till all his soul is radiant, blazing bright.
The great earth under him an altar is,
Upon whose top a sacrifice he lies,
Burning to God up through the nightly skies,
Whose love, warm-brooding o'er him, kindled his;
Until his flaming thoughts, consumed, expire,
Sleep's ashes covering the yet glowing fire.

George MacDonald

A Broken Prayer

0 Lord, my God, how long
Shall my poor heart pant for a boundless joy?
How long, O mighty Spirit, shall I hear
The murmur of Truth's crystal waters slide
From the deep caverns of their endless being,
But my lips taste not, and the grosser air
Choke each pure inspiration of thy will?

I am a denseness 'twixt me and the light;
1 cannot round myself; my purest thought,
Ere it is thought, hath caught the taint of earth,
And mocked me with hard thoughts beyond my will.

I would be a wind
Whose smallest atom is a viewless wing,
All busy with the pulsing life that throbs
To do thy bidding; yea, or the meanest thing
That has relation to a changeless truth,
Could I but be instinct with thee--each thought
The lightning of a pure intelligence,
And eve...

George MacDonald

Let Your Light So Shine.

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:
    Shrouded in danger gray the beacon stands!

A pharos? Oh dull brain! poor dying lamp
    Under a bushel with an earthy smell!
Mouldering it stands, in rust and eating damp,
    While the slow oil keeps oozing from its cell!

For me it were enough to be a flower
    Knowing its root in thee, the Living, hid,
Ordained to blossom at the appointed hour,
    And wake or sleep as thou, my Nature, bid;

But hear my brethren in their darkling fright!
    Hearten my lamp that it may shine abroad
Then will they cry--Lo, there is something bright!
    Who kindled it if not the shining God?

George MacDonald

The Lost Soul.

Brothers, look there!

What! see ye nothing yet?
Knit your eyebrows close, and stare;
Send your souls forth in the gaze,
As my finger-point is set,
Through the thick of the foggy air.
Beyond the air, you see the dark;
(For the darkness hedges still our ways;)
And beyond the dark, oh, lives away!
Dim and far down, surely you mark
A huge world-heap of withered years
Dropt from the boughs of eternity?
See ye not something lying there,
Shapeless as a dumb despair,
Yet a something that spirits can recognise
With the vision dwelling in their eyes?
It hath the form of a man!
As a huge moss-rock in a valley green,
When the light to freeze began,
Thickening with crystals of dark between,
Might look like a sleeping man.
What think ye it, br...

George MacDonald

To My Mother Earth

0 Earth, Earth, Earth,
    I am dying for love of thee,
For thou hast given me birth,
    And thy hands have tended me.

I would fall asleep on thy breast
    When its swelling folds are bare,
When the thrush dreams of its nest
    And the life of its joy in the air;

When thy life is a vanished ghost,
    And the glory hath left thy waves,
When thine eye is blind with frost,
    And the fog sits on the graves;

When the blasts are shivering about,
    And the rain thy branches beats,
When the damps of death are out,
    And the mourners are in the streets.

Oh my sleep should be deep
    In the arms of thy swiftening motion,
And my dirge the mystic sweep
    Of the winds that nurse the ocean.

And my eye would slow...

George MacDonald