Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.
George MacDonald (18241905)135. A Prayer for the Past
A
All groups and forms, each leaf and gem,
Are thine, O God, nor will I fear
To talk to Thee of them.
Whose day girds centuries about;
From things which we name small, Thine eyes
See great things looking out.
May come to Thee in ordered words:
Though lowly born, it needs not cling
In terror to its chords.
That not a moon has ever shone,
That not a cloud my eyes hath crossed
But to my soul is gone.
In this Thy casket, my dim soul;
And Thou wilt, once, the key apply,
And show the shining whole.
In Thee, Whose Parable is—Time,
And Worlds, and Forms—all things that give
Me thoughts, and this my rime.
This earth is not a place of tombs:
We are but in the nursery now;
They in the upper rooms.
And all this world a visioned show;
That, knowing what Abroad is, we
What Home is too may know?