"A Quiet More Deep Than Death"

Rest

I.

When round the earth the Father's hands
  Have gently drawn the dark;
Sent off the sun to fresher lands,
  And curtained in the lark;
'Tis sweet, all tired with glowing day,
  To fade with faded light;
To lie once more, the old weary way,
  Upfolded in the night.

A mother o'er the couch may bend,
  And rose-leaf kisses heap:
In soothing dreams with sleep they blend,
  Till even in dreams we sleep.
And, if we wake while night is dumb,
  'Tis sweet to turn and say,
It is an hour ere dawning come,
  And I will sleep till day.






II.






There is a dearer, warmer bed,
  Where one all day may lie,
Earth's bosom pillowing the head,
  And let the world go by.
Instead of mother's love-lit eyes,
  The church's storied pane,
All blank beneath cold starry skies,
  Or sounding in the rain.






The great world, shouting, forward fares:
  This chamber, hid from none,
Hides safe from all, for no one cares
  For those whose work is done.
Cheer thee, my heart, though tired and slow
  An unknown grassy place
Somewhere on earth is waiting now
  To rest thee from thy race.









III.






There is a calmer than all calms,
  A quiet more deep than death:
A folding in the Father's palms,
  A breathing in his breath;
A rest made deeper by alarms
  And stormy sounds combined:
The child within its mother's arms
  Sleeps sounder for the wind.





There needs no curtained bed to hide
  The world with all its wars,
Nor grassy cover to divide
  From sun and moon and stars
A window open to the skies,
  A sense of changeless life,
With oft returning still surprise
  Repels the sounds of strife.







IV.






As one bestrides a wild scared horse
  Beneath a stormy moon,
And still his heart, with quiet force,
  Beats on its own calm tune;
So if my heart with trouble now
  Be throbbing in my breast,
Thou art my deeper heart, and Thou,
  O God, dost ever rest.






When mighty sea-winds madly blow,
  And tear the scattered waves;
As still as summer woods, below
  Lie darkling ocean caves:
The wind of words may toss my heart,
  But what is that to me!
'Tis but a surface storm--Thou art
  My deep, still, resting sea.

(Geroge MacDonald,1864)

The Lost Church

Oft in the far wood, overhead,

Tones of a bell are heard obscurely;

How old the sounds no sage has said,

Or yet explained the story surely.

From the lost church, the legend saith,

Out on the winds, the ringing goeth;

Once full of pilgrims was the path—

Now where to find it, no one knoweth.

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Deep in the wood I lately went,

Where no foot-trodden path is lying;

From the time's woe and discontent,

My heart went forth to God in sighing.

When in the forest's wild repose,

I heard the ringing somewhat clearer;

The higher that my longing rose,

Downward it rang the fuller, nearer.

So on its thoughts my heart did brood,

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My sense was with the sound so busy,

That I have never understood

How I clomb up the height so dizzy.

To me it seemed a hundred years

Had passed away in dreaming, sighing—

When lo! high o'er the clouds, appears

An open space in sunlight lying.

The heaven, dark-blue, above it bowed;

The sun shone o'er it, large and glowing;

Beneath, a ministers structure proud

Stood in the gold light, golden showing.

It seemed on those great clouds, sun-clear,

Aloft to hover, as on pinions;

Its spire-point seemed to disappear,

Melting away in high dominions.

The bell's clear tones, entrancing, full—

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The quivering tower, they, booming, swung it;

No human hand the rope did pull—

The holy storm-winds sweeping rung it. 

The storm, the stream, came down, came near,

And seized my heart with longing holy;

Into the church I went, with fear,

With trembling step, and gladness lowly.

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The threshold crossed--I cannot show

What in me moved; words cannot paint it.

Both dark and clear, the windows glow

With noble forms of martyrs sainted.

I gazed and saw--transfigured glory!

The pictures swell and break their barriers;

I saw the world and all its story

Of holy women, holy warriors.

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Down at the altar I sank slowly;

My heart was like the face of Stephen.

Aloft, upon the arches holy,

Shone out in gold the glow of heaven.

I prayed; I looked again; and lo!

The dome's high sweep had flown asunder;

The heavenly gates wide open go;

And every veil unveils a wonder.

What gloriousness I then beheld, 

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Kneeling in prayer, silent and wondrous,
What sounds triumphant on me swelled,

Like organs and like trumpets thunderous—

My mortal words can never tell;

But who for such is sighing sorest,

Let him give heed unto the bell

That dimly soundeth in the forest.'"

George MacDonald

(As a commentary on this poem, read the conversation after the poem is read in MacDonald’s Story, Adela Cathcart:

  "What is the lost church?" asked Mrs. Cathcart.

  "No one can tell, but him who finds it, like the poet," answered the curate.

  "But I suppose you at least consider it the Church of England," returned the lady with one of her sweetest attempts at a smile.

  "God forbid!" exclaimed the clergyman, with a kind of sacred horror.

  "Not the Church of England!" cried Mrs. Cathcart, in a tone of horror likewise, dashed with amazement.

  "No, madam--the Church of God; the great cathedral-church of the universe; of which Church I trust the Church of England is a little Jesus-chapel. . . “

  "Whoever finds God in his own heart," said the clergyman, solemnly, "has found the lost Church--the Church of God.”)


What else can I say?  MacDonald does it best.  Only this:


O God, you are my God. 
  Earnestly I seek you. 
My soul thirsts for you,
  My body longs for you
In a dry and weary land
  Where there is no water.

I have seen you in the sanctuary
  And beheld your power and your glory. . . (Ps. 63)