Produced by John Bechard

A BOOK OF STRIFE IN THE FORM OF THE DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL

by George MacDonald

Published in 1880.

[The dedication refers to the fact that the book was originally published using only the right-hand side pages of the book, leaving the left-hand side blank to allow for and acknowledge any thoughtful reader responses.]

JB

DEDICATION

Sweet friends, receive my offering. You will find Against each worded page a white page set:-- This is the mirror of each friendly mind Reflecting that. In this book we are met. Make it, dear hearts, of worth to you indeed:-- Let your white page be ground, my print be seed, Growing to golden ears, that faith and hope shall feed.

YOUR OLD SOUL

THE DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL.

JANUARY.

1.

LORD, what I once had done with youthful might, Had I been from the first true to the truth, Grant me, now old, to do--with better sight, And humbler heart, if not the brain of youth; So wilt thou, in thy gentleness and ruth, Lead back thy old soul, by the path of pain, Round to his best--young eyes and heart and brain.

2.

A dim aurora rises in my east, Beyond the line of jagged questions hoar, As if the head of our intombed High Priest Began to glow behind the unopened door: Sure the gold wings will soon rise from the gray!-- They rise not. Up I rise, press on the more, To meet the slow coming of the Master's day.

3.

Sometimes I wake, and, lo! I have forgot, And drifted out upon an ebbing sea! My soul that was at rest now resteth not, For I am with myself and not with thee; Truth seems a blind moon in a glaring morn, Where nothing is but sick-heart vanity: Oh, thou who knowest! save thy child forlorn.

4.

Death, like high faith, levelling, lifteth all. When I awake, my daughter and my son, Grown sister and brother, in my arms shall fall, Tenfold my girl and boy. Sure every one Of all the brood to the old wings will run. Whole-hearted is my worship of the man From whom my earthly history began.

5.

Thy fishes breathe but where thy waters roll; Thy birds fly but within thy airy sea; My soul breathes only in thy infinite soul; I breathe, I think, I love, I live but thee. Oh breathe, oh think,--O Love, live into me; Unworthy is my life till all divine, Till thou see in me only what is thine.

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Ol
• 2: The idle flapping of the sail is doubt
• 3: And the unseen root clings cramplike unto thee
• 4: Knocks where the conscience lies
• 5: Only obedience holds I haste
• 6: When busy with the work thou givest me
• 7: Who would not poverty for riches yield
• 8: Sunset faints after sunset into the night
• 9: Be unto me Thy own eternal self
• 10: When I am thinking thee within my heart
• 11: And die into the heaven of thy pure will
• 12: Beyond all waking bliss only of grass
• 13: The stone threshold is so high
• 14: Because thou everything dost fill
• 15: A perfectness of bliss beyond compare
• 16: Becomes not poison that doth burn and cling
• 17: Thou hast carried me through this evening's duty
• 18: 'Tis heart on heart thou rulest
• 19: Nought else befits a God born energy
• 20: Thou art the one self perfect life
• 21: Me thou hast given an infinite unrest
• 22: Poor Fancy's doves are swept away
• 23: Thou workest with such common things Low souls
• 24: That word the holy truth doth blur
• 25: Notion with notion making leagues and pacts
• 26: That hair's breadth is eternal
• 27: Brooding only on that treasure
• 28: Dost thou mean sometimes that we should forget thee
• 29: Mirror of God's creating mirror
• 30: Or that which bore the grand mood
• 31: Things wrong are needful where wrong things abound
• 32: Death haunts our souls with dissolution's strife
• 33: And take thy foe by the throat
• 34: But when in the dim silver thou dost look
• 35: Thou wilt have pity on thy handiwork
• 36: My surgent thought shoots lark like up to thee
• 37: For how believe thee somewhere in blank space
• 38: When the children had made sparrows of clay
• 39: I know I know thee not as I would know thee
• 40: Or I am weary of weariness and strife
• 41: There will be jubilation in a world
• 42: And fly abroad a glory flit and flee
• 43: Thou hast the Son God to thy friend