Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
Sonnet: ‘This infant world has taken long to make’George MacDonald (1824–1905)
T
Nor hast Thou done with it, but mak’st it yet,
And wilt be working on when death has set
A new mound in some churchyard for my sake.
On flow the centuries without a break;
Uprise the mountains, ages without let;
The lichens suck; the hard rock’s breast they fret;
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 Thou wouldst some old chaotic prime
Invade, and, moved by tenderness sublime,
Unfold a world that I, thy child, might see.