Within and Without

beloved?
Oh! if I could but lie down at thy feet,
And tell thee all⁠—yea, every thought⁠—I know
That thou wouldst think the best that could be thought,
And love and comfort me. O Julian,
I am more thine than ever.⁠—Forgive me, husband,
For calling me, defiled and outcast, thine.
Yet may I not be thine as I am His?
Would I might be thy servant⁠—yes, thy slave,
To wash thy feet, and dress thy lovely child,
And bring her at thy call⁠—more wife than I.
But I shall never see thee, till the earth
Lies on us both⁠—apart⁠—oh, far apart!
How lonely shall I lie the long, long years! Lily

O mother, there are blue skies here, and flowers,
And blowing winds, and kisses, mother dear!
And every time my father kisses me,
It is not father only, but another.
Make haste and come. My head never aches here.

Lilia

Can it be that they are dead? Is it possible?
I feel as if they were near me!⁠—Speak again,
Beloved voices; comfort me; I need it.

Julian

Singing.

Come to us: above the storm
Ever shines the blue.
Come to us: beyond its form
Ever lies the True.

Lily

Singing.

Mother, darling, do not weep⁠—
All I cannot tell:
By and by you’ll go to sleep,
And you’ll wake so well.

Julian

Singing.

There is sunshine everywhere
For thy heart and mine:
God, for every sin and care,
Is the cure divine.

Lily

Singing.

We’re so happy all the day,
Waiting for another!
All the flowers and sunshine stay,
Watching for my mother.

Julian

My maiden! for true wife is always maiden
To the true husband: thou art mine forever.

Lilia

What gentle hopes keep passing to and fro!
Thou shadowest me with thine own rest, my God;
A cloud from thee stoops down and covers me. She falls asleep on her knees.

Scene III

Julian on the summit of a mountain-peak. The stars are brilliant around a crescent moon, hanging halfway between the mountain and the zenith. Below lies a sea of vapour. Beyond rises a loftier pinnacle, across which is stretched a bar of cloud. Lily lies on the cloud, looking earnestly into the mist below.

Julian	Gazing upward. And thou wast with me all the time, my God, Even as now! I was not far from thee. Thy spirit spoke in all my wants and fears, And hopes and longings. Thou art all in all. I am not mine, but thine. I cannot speak The thoughts that work within me like a sea. When on the earth I lay, crushed down beneath A hopeless weight of empty desolation, Thy loving face was lighted then, O Christ, With expectation of my joy to come, When all the realm of possible ill should lie Under my feet, and I should stand as now Heart-sure of thee, true-hearted, only One. Was ever soul filled to such overflowing With the pure wine of blessedness, my God! Filled as the night with stars, am I with joys; Filled as the heavens with thee, am I with peace; For now I wait the end of all my prayers⁠— Of all that have to do with old-world things: What new things come to wake new prayers, my God, Thou know’st; I wait on thee in perfect peace. He turns his gaze downward.⁠—From the fog-sea below half-rises a woman-form, which floats toward him. Lo, as the lily lifts its shining bosom From the lone couch of waters where it slept, When the fair morn toucheth and waketh it; So riseth up my lily from the deep Where human souls are vexed in awful dreams! Lily spies her mother, darts down, and is caught in her arms. They land on Julian’s peak, and climb, Lily leading her mother.
Lily	Come faster, mother dear; father is waiting.
Lilia	Have patience with me, darling. By and by, I think, I shall do better.⁠—Oh my Julian!
Julian	I may not help her. She must climb and come. He reaches his hand, and the three are clasped in an infinite embrace. O God, thy thoughts, thy ways, are not as ours: They fill our longing hearts up to the brim. The moon and the stars and the blue night close around them; and the poet awakes from his dream.

Colophon

Within and Without
was published in 1855 by
George MacDonald.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
C. B. Bowman,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2005 by
Jonathan Ingram, Robert Prince, and Distributed Proofreaders
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
HathiTrust Digital Library.

The cover page is adapted from
The Sunlight,
a painting completed circa 1890 by
Ture Nikolaus Cederström.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
September 8, 2026, 9:53 p.m.
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