Within and Without

Within and Without

By George MacDonald.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. To L. P. M. D.
4. Epigraph
5. Within and Without
   1. Part I
      1. Scene I
      2. Scene II
      3. Scene III
      4. Scene IV
      5. Scene V
      6. Scene VI
      7. Scene VII
      8. Scene VIII
   2. Part II
      1. Scene I
      2. Scene II
      3. Scene III
      4. Scene IV
      5. Scene V
      6. Scene VI
      7. Scene VII
      8. Scene VIII
      9. Scene IX
      10. Scene X
      11. Scene XI
      12. Scene XII
      13. Scene XIII
      14. Scene XIV
      15. Scene XV
      16. Scene XVI
      17. Scene XVII
      18. Scene XVIII
      19. Scene XIX
   3. Part III
      1. Scene I
      2. Scene II
      3. Scene III
      4. Scene IV
      5. Scene V
      6. Scene VI
      7. Scene VII
      8. Scene VIII
      9. Scene IX
      10. Scene X
      11. Scene XI
   4. Part IV
      1. Scene I
      2. Scene II
      3. Scene III
      4. Scene IV
      5. Scene V
      6. Scene VI
      7. Scene VII
      8. Scene VIII
      9. Scene IX
      10. Scene X
      11. Scene XI
      12. Scene XII
      13. Scene XIII
      14. Scene XIV
      15. Scene XV
      16. Scene XVI
      17. Scene XVII
      18. Scene XVIII
      19. Scene XIX
      20. Scene XX
      21. Scene XXI
      22. Scene XXII
      23. Scene XXIII
      24. Scene XXIV
      25. Scene XXV
   5. Part V
      1. Scene I
      2. Scene II
      3. Scene III
6. Colophon
7. Uncopyright

Imprint

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To L. P. M. D.

Receive thine own; for I and it are thine.
Thou know’st its story; how for forty days⁠—
Weary with sickness and with social haze,
(After thy hands and lips with love divine
Had somewhat soothed me, made the glory shine,
Though with a watery lustre,) more delays
Of blessedness forbid⁠—I took my ways
Into a solitude, Invention’s mine;
There thought and wrote, afar, and yet with thee.
Those days gone past, I came, and brought a book;
My child, developed since in limb and look.
It came in shining vapours from the sea,
And in thy stead sung low sweet songs to me,
When the red life-blood labour would not brook.

May, 1855.

What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather⁠—
With outward maker’s force, or like an inward father.

Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia

Within and Without

A Dramatic Poem

Part I

Go thou into thy closet; shut thy door;
And pray to Him in secret: He will hear.
But think not thou, by one wild bound, to clear
The numberless ascensions, more and more,
Of starry stairs that must be climbed, before
Thou comest to the Father’s likeness near,
And bendest down to kiss the feet so dear
That, step by step, their mounting flights passed o’er.
Be thou content if on thy weary need
There falls a sense of showers and of the spring;
A hope that makes it possible to fling
Sickness aside, and go and do the deed;
For highest aspiration will not lead
Unto the calm beyond all questioning.

Scene I

A cell in a convent. Julian alone.

Julian

Evening again slow creeping like a death! And the red sunbeams fading from the wall, On which they flung a sky, with streaks and bars Of the poor window-pane that let them in, For clouds and shadings of the mimic heaven! Soul of my cell, they part, no more to come. But what is light to me, while I am dark! And yet they strangely draw me, those faint hues, Reflected flushes from the Evening’s face, Which as a bride, with glowing arms outstretched, Takes to her blushing heaven him who has left His chamber in the dim deserted east. Through walls and hills I see it! The rosy sea! The radiant head half-sunk! A pool of light, As the blue globe had by a blow been broken, And the insphered glory bubbled forth! Or the sun were a splendid water-bird, That flying furrowed with its golden feet A flashing wake over the waves, and home! Lo there!⁠—Alas, the dull blank wall!⁠—High up, The window-pane a dead gray eye! and night Come on me like a thief!⁠—Ah, well! the sun Has always made me sad! I’ll go and pray: The terror of the night begins with prayer.

Vesper bell. Call them that need thee; I need not thy summons; My knees would not so pain me when I kneel, If only at thy voice my prayer awoke. I will not to the chapel. When I find Him, Then will I praise him from the heights of peace; But now my soul is as a speck of life Cast on the deserts of eternity; A hungering and a thirsting, nothing more. I am as a child new-born, its mother dead, Its father far away beyond the seas. Blindly I stretch my arms and seek for him: He goeth by me, and I