George MacDonald

A Cry

Lord, hear my discontent: all blank I stand,
A mirror polished by thy hand;
Thy sun's beams flash and flame from me-
I cannot help it: here I stand, there he!
To one of them I cannot say,
Go, and on yonder water play;
Nor one poor ragged daisy can I fashion-
I do not make the words of this my limping passion!
If I should say, Now I will think a thought,
Lo, I must wait, unknowing
What thought in me is growing,
Until the thing to birth be brought!
Nor know I then what next will come
From out the gulf of silence dumb:
I am the door the thing will find
To pass into the general mind!
I cannot say
I think
-
I only stand upon the thought-well's brink:
From darkness to the sun the water bubbles up-
lift it in my cup.
Thou only thinkest-I am thought;
Me and my thought thou thinkest. Nought
Am I but as a fountain spout
From which thy water welleth out.
Thou art the only one, the all in all.-
Yet when my soul on thee doth call
And thou dost answer out of everywhere,
I in thy allness have my perfect share.