The Day grew small, surrounded tight
By early, stooping Night —
The Afternoon in Evening deep
Its Yellow shortness dropt —
The Winds went out their martial ways
The Leaves obtained excuse —
November hung his Granite Hat
Upon a nail of Plush —
-Emily Dickinson
George MacDonald’s Diary of an Old Soul is a long poem with seven lines for each day of the year. You can find the whole thing at Project Gutenberg. Here are just the first five days/stanzas of “November,” in which MacDonald so richly describes the situation we often find ourselves in, our hearts weary and plodding, and our thoughts dull. He prays for strength to face the darkness, and to find Christ in it.
1.
THOU art of this world, Christ. Thou know’st it all;
Thou know’st our evens, our morns, our red and gray;
How moons, and hearts, and seasons rise and fall;
How we grow weary plodding on the way;
Of future joy how present pain bereaves,
Rounding us with a dark of mere decay,
Tossed with a drift Of summer-fallen leaves.
2.
Thou knowest all our weeping, fainting, striving;
Thou know’st how very hard it is to be;
How hard to rouse faint will not yet reviving;
To do the pure thing, trusting all to thee;
To hold thou art there, for all no face we see;
How hard to think, through cold and dark and dearth,
That thou art nearer now than when eye-seen on earth.
3.
Have pity on us for the look of things,
When blank denial stares us in the face.
Although the serpent mask have lied before,
It fascinates the bird that darkling sings,
And numbs the little prayer-bird’s beating wings.
For how believe thee somewhere in blank space,
If through the darkness come no knocking to our door?
4.
If we might sit until the darkness go,
Possess our souls in patience perhaps we might;
But there is always something to be done,
And no heart left to do it. To and fro
The dull thought surges, as the driven waves fight
In gulfy channels. Oh! victorious one,
Give strength to rise, go out, and meet thee in the night.
5.
“Wake, thou that sleepest; rise up from the dead,
And Christ will give thee light.” I do not know
What sleep is, what is death, or what is light;
But I am waked enough to feel a woe,
To rise and leave death. Stumbling through the night,
To my dim lattice, O calling Christ! I go,
And out into the dark look for thy star-crowned head.
–George MacDonald
I heard this last fall on The Daily Poem podcast and listened again and again…. Unfortunately that reading seems not to be online any longer. Note: The repetition of “lost hours” is not a typo.
It’s a beautiful description of a quiet woodland scene in autumn, contrasted with the poet’s indecision and restlessness. He inserts his own feelings into the drama of sunlight and dead leaves, thirst and rest. While in nature nothing is lost, and renewal always comes, it’s not easy for humans, with our conflicted souls, to receive the blessing.
AUTUMN IDLENESS
This sunlight shames November where he grieves
In dead red leaves, and will not let him shun
The day, though bough with bough be over-run.
But with a blessing every glade receives
High salutation; while from hillock-eaves
The deer gaze calling, dappled white and dun,
As if, foresters of old, the sun
Had marked them with the shade of forest-leaves.
Here dawn to-day unveiled her magic glass;
Here noon now gives the thirst and takes the dew;
Till eve bring rest when other good things pass.
And here the lost hours the lost hours renew
While I lead my shadow o’er the grass,
Nor know, for longing, that which I should do.
-Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Nothing could be more pleasing than to have rain in the night and morning, followed by sunshine and blue skies. The cold air smells delicious.
I walked in the garden to cut zinnias and pick up pineapple guavas from the ground. I cleaned all the redwood twigs out of the fountain, which has been turned off for a couple of months, and filled it from the hose. It’s now bubbling and the garden sounds normal once more.
There have been years when not one guava got ripe, but this year I’ve had many, and big ones. Usually I just scoop with a spoon out of one at a time, but yesterday I took all the flesh from ten or so into a bowl, and ate the lot with cream.
November is here!
Gladsome Lights 