Rosa's Poetry Archives: George MacDonald

If thou hadst closed my life in seed and husk,

And cast me into soft, warm, damp, dark mold,

All unaware of light come through the dusk,

I yet should feel the split of each shelly fold,

Should feel the growing of my prisoned heart,

And dully dream of being slow unrolled,

And in some other vagueness taking part.

And little as the world I should foreknow

Up into which I was about to rise-

Its rains, its radiance, airs and warmth, and skies,

How it would greet me, how its winds would blow-

As little it may be, I do know the good

Which I for years half darkling have pursued-

The second birth for which my nature cries.

The life that knows not, patients waits, nor longs-

I know, and would be patient, yet would long.

I can be patient for all coming songs,

But let me sing my one monotonous song.

To me the time is slow my mold among;

To quicker life I fain would spur and start

The aching growth at my dull-swelling heart.

-George MacDonald, 'Diary Of An Old Soul'