Read "A Book of Strife in the Form of the Diary of an Old Soul" by George MacDonald online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
1. THE song birds that come to me night and morn, Fly oft away and vanish if I sleep, Nor to my fowling-net will one return: Is the thing ever ours we cannot keep? -- But their souls go not out into the deep. What matter if with changed song they come back? Old strength nor yet fresh beauty shall they lack.
2. Gloriously wasteful, O my Lord, art thou! Sunset faints after sunset into the night, Splendorously dying from thy window-sill -- For ever. Sad our poverty doth bow Before the riches of thy making might: Sweep from thy space thy systems at thy will -- In thee the sun sets every sunset still.