Read "Life or Death?" by George MacDonald online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Is there a secret Joy, that may not weep, / For every flower that ends its little span, / For every child that groweth up to man, / For every captive bird a cage doth keep, / For every aching eye that went to sleep / Long ages back, when other eyes began / To see and know and love as now they can, / Unravelling God's wonders heap by heap?
Or doth the Past lie 'mid Eternity / In charnel dens that rot and reek alway, / A dismal light for those that go astray, / A pit of foul deformity -- to be, / Beauty, a dreadful source of growth for thee / When thou wouldst lift thine eyes to greet the day?