X.
DR. GEORGE MACDONALD'S CREED.[35]
(WRITTEN AT CULLEN).
God will not suffer that a single one
Of His own creatures, in His image made,
Should die, and in irrevocable shade
Lie evermore—neglected and undone.
It is not thus a father treats his son,
And those whose folly credits it, degrade
God's love and fatherhood, that never fade,
By lies as base as devils ever spun.
Man's love is but a pale reflex of God's,
And God is love, and never will condemn
Beyond remission—though He school with rods—
His children, but will one day comfort them.
Dives will have his drink at last, and stand
Among the faithful ones at God's right hand.
XI.
ABBOTSFORD.
"Dryden and Scott, men of a giant seed!"
So said I to myself, gazing upon
The pictured countenance of Glorious John,
In Abbotsford, hard by the storied Tweed.
These twain were brothers, kin in mind and deed:
Old England never had a brawnier son
Than Dryden; and in fervid Scotland none
Better than Scott exemplified the breed.
After five centuries of blood and hate,
Britain is one leal land from north to south,
From gusty Thurso to St. Michael's Mount,
I therefore, Scot and Briton, am elate
To think that from Sir Walter's golden mouth
Dryden's career received the fit account.
XII.
CARLYLE
(AT ECCLEFECHAN).
The ploughman in the loamy furrow sings,
The sailor whistles as he reefs the sail,
Blithe is the smith as the blows fall like hail
From his huge hammer, and the stithy rings.
Work is the sole and sovereign balm that brings
Peace to the torpid soul when doubts assail,
And sickening pleasures are of no avail
To lull the torture of affliction's stings.
Give me the work I love, the work I feel
God in His Heaven has willed that I should do,
And you may offer the whole commonweal,
Lands, mansions, jewels, gold, and temples too,
Vainly to me. By strenuous work alone
Man mounts on Jacob's ladder to God's throne.