Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

George Macdonald 1824–1905

World and Soul

MacdonG

THIS infant world has taken long to make!

Nor hast Thou done the making of it yet,

But wilt be working on when death has set

A new mound in some church-yard for my sake.

On flow the centuries without a break;

Uprise the mountains, ages without let;

The lichens suck the rock’s breast—food they get:

Years more than past, the young earth yet will take.

But in the dumbness of the rolling time,

No veil of silence shall encompass me:

Thou wilt not once forget and let me be;

Rather wouldst Thou some old chaotic prime

Invade, and, with a tenderness sublime,

Unfold a world, that I, thy child, might see.