Thomas Wingfold. Volume II by George MacDonald

Invited to ascend, Wingfold followed Rachel to her uncle's room, and there, whether guided by her or not, the conversation presently took such a turn that at length, of his own motion, Polwarth offered to read his verses. From the drawer of his table he took a scratched and scored halfsheet, and -- not in the most melodious of voices, yet in one whose harshness and weakness could not cover a certain refinement of spiritual tenderness -- read as follows:

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 is brought; / Nor know I then what next will come / From out the gulf of silence dumb. / I am the door the thing did 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 -- / I 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.