To The Life Eternal

Thou art my thought, my heart, my being's fortune,
    The search for thee my growth's first conscious date;
For nought, for everything, I thee importune;
    Thou art my all, my origin and fate!

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

Translations. - The Hundred And Twenty-Eighth Psalm. (Luther's Song-Book.)

George MacDonald, Simple Poetry

To A Sister

George MacDonald, Simple Poetry

If I Were A Monk, And Thou Wert A Nun

George MacDonald, Simple Poetry

Our Ship

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.

De Profundis

When I am dead unto myself, and let,
O Father, thee live on in me,
Contented to do nought but pay my debt,
And leave the house to thee,

Then shall I be thy ransomed--from the cark
Of living, from the strain for breath,
From tossing in my coffin strait and dark,
At hourly strife with death!

Have mercy! in my coffin! and awake!
A buried temple of the Lord!
Grow, Temple, grow! Heart, from thy cerements break!
Stream out, O living Sword!

When I am with thee as thou art with me,
Life will be self-forgetting power;
Love, ever conscious, buoyant, clear, and free,
Will flame in darkest hour.

Where now I sit alone, unmoving, calm,
With windows open to thy wind,
Shall I not know thee in the radiant psalm
Soaring from heart and mind...

George MacDonald

To My God

Oh how oft I wake and find
    I have been forgetting thee!
I am never from thy mind:
    Thou it is that wakest me.

George MacDonald

Come To Me

Come to me, come to me, O my God;
    Come to me everywhere!
Let the trees mean thee, and the grassy sod,
    And the water and the air!

For thou art so far that I often doubt,
    As on every side I stare,
Searching within, and looking without,
    If thou canst be anywhere.

How did men find thee in days of old?
    How did they grow so sure?
They fought in thy name, they were glad and bold,
    They suffered, and kept themselves pure!

But now they say--neither above the sphere
    Nor down in the heart of man,
But solely in fancy, ambition, and fear
    The thought of thee began.

If only that perfect tale were true
    Which ages have not made old,
Which of endless many makes one anew,
    And simplicity manifold!
...

George MacDonald

The Diary Of An Old Soul. - July.

        1.

        ALAS, my tent! see through it a whirlwind sweep!
        Moaning, poor Fancy's doves are swept away.
        I sit alone, a sorrow half asleep,
        My consciousness the blackness all astir.
        No pilgrim I, a homeless wanderer--
        For how canst Thou be in the darkness deep,
        Who dwellest only in the living day?

        2.

        It must be, somewhere in my fluttering tent,
        Strange creatures, half tamed only yet, are pent--
        Dragons, lop-winged birds, and large-eyed snakes!
        Hark! through the storm the saddest howling breaks!
        Or are they loose, roaming about the bent,
        The darkness dire deepening with moan and scream?--
        My Morning, rise, and all shall be a dream....

George MacDonald

At My Window After Sunset

    Heaven and the sea attend the dying day,
    And in their sadness overflow and blend--
    Faint gold, and windy blue, and green and gray:
    Far out amid them my pale soul I send.

    For, as they mingle, so mix life and death;
    An hour draws near when my day too will die;
    Already I forecast unheaving breath,
    Eviction on the moorland of yon sky.

    Coldly and sadly lone, unhoused, alone,
    Twixt wind-broke wave and heaven's uncaring space!
    At board and hearth from this time forth unknown!
    Refuge no more in wife or daughter's face!

    Cold, cold and sad, lone as that desert sea!
    Sad, lonely, as that hopeless, patient sky!
    Forward I cannot go, nor backward flee!
    I am not dead; I live, and cannot die!

George MacDonald

The Diary Of An Old Soul. - October.

        1.

        REMEMBER, Lord, thou hast not made me good.
        Or if thou didst, it was so long ago
        I have forgotten--and never understood,
        I humbly think. At best it was a crude,
        A rough-hewn goodness, that did need this woe,
        This sin, these harms of all kinds fierce and rude,
        To shape it out, making it live and grow.

        2.

        But thou art making me, I thank thee, sire.
        What thou hast done and doest thou know'st well,
        And I will help thee:--gently in thy fire
        I will lie burning; on thy potter's-wheel
        I will whirl patient, though my brain should reel;
        Thy grace shall be enough the grief to quell,
        And growing strength perfect through weakness d...

George MacDonald