A Hidden Life and Other Poems
1864
In an age of grand Victorian narratives, George MacDonald turned his gaze toward something quieter: the hidden lives of those who work the earth, love simply, and pray without words. The title poem follows a young farmer at his plough, his heart stirred not by adventure but by the turn of the soil and the presence of a maiden in the fields. MacDonald finds the sacred in the ordinary, furrows and harvest, devotion and desire. His verse moves with the rhythms of nature, breathing gratitude for life's small mercies: morning light on the hills, the faithful presence of a loving God, the unspoken understanding between souls. These are poems written by a man who believed the deepest truths live in quiet places, away from the world's noise. For readers seeking poetry that steadies rather than startles, that illuminates rather than dazzles, this collection offers a sanctuary, a reminder that most lives, beautifully lived, remain hidden from history but not from meaning.
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“But we believe – nay, Lord we only hope,That one day we shall thank thee perfectlyFor pain and hope and all that led or droveUs back into the bosom of thy love.””
— George MacDonald
“O, lack and doubt and fear can only comeBecause of plenty, confidence, and love!They are the shadow-forms about their feet,Because they are not perfect crystal-clearTo the all-searching sun in which they live.Dread of its loss is Beauty’s certain seal!””
— George MacDonald
“God, and not woman, is the heart of all. But she, as priestess of the visible earth, Holding the key, herself most beautiful, Had come to him, and flung the portals wide. He entered in: each beauty was a glass That gleamed the woman back upon his view.””
— George MacDonald
“He walked as in a twilight of the sense,Which this one day shall turn to tender light.””
— George MacDonald
