George MacDonald

I've just been revisiting George MacDonald's collection of poems "Diary of an Old Soul' which offers an eight line poem for each day of the year. The poem from July 10 gave me the title for my second album 'By Faint Degrees'. He was such a wonderful writer, and his writing was grounded in a beautiful (though not uncontroversial) theology. In the first part of these poems from July he deals with the importance of small things and I'll reproduce here the verses of July 4 & 5:

Master, thou workest with such common things-
Low souls, weak hearts, I mean - and hast to use
Therefore, such common means and rescuings,
That hard we find it, as we sit and muse,
To think thou workest in us verily:
Bad sea-boats we, and manned with wretched crews-
That doubt the captain, watch the storm spray flee.

Thou art hampered in thy natural working then
When beings designed on freedom' holy plan
Will not be free: with thy poor, foolish men,
Thou therefore hast to work just like a man.
But when, tangling thyself in their sore need,
Thou has to freedom fashioned them indeed,
Then wilt thou grandly move, and godlike speed.

Amazing stuff. Hope that whets you appetites.