Diary of an Old Soul, Jan 28 - Feb 3

28. I was like Peter when he began to sink.
To thee a new prayer therefore I have got--
That, when Death comes in earnest to my door,
Thou wouldst thyself go, when the latch doth clink,
And lead him to my room, up to my cot;
Then hold thy child's hand, hold and leave him not,
Till Death has done with him for evermore.

29. Till Death has done with him?--Ah, leave me then!
And Death has done with me, oh, nevermore!
He comes--and goes--to leave me in thy arms,
Nearer thy heart, oh, nearer than before!
To lay thy child, naked, new-born again
Of mother earth, crept free through many harms,
Upon thy bosom--still to the very core.

30. Come to me, Lord: I will not speculate how,
Nor think at which door I would have thee appear,
Nor put off calling till my floors be swept,
But cry, "Come, Lord, come any way, come now."
Doors, windows, I throw wide; my head I bow,
And sit like some one who so long has slept
That he knows nothing till his life draw near.

31. O Lord, I have been talking to the people;
Thought's wheels have round me whirled a fiery zone,
And the recoil of my words' airy ripple
My heart unheedful has puffed up and blown.
Therefore I cast myself before thee prone:
Lay cool hands on my burning brain, and press
From my weak heart the swelling emptiness.

FEBRUARY. 1. I to myself have neither power nor worth,
Patience nor love, nor anything right good;
My soul is a poor land, plenteous in dearth--
Here blades of grass, there a small herb for food--
A nothing that would be something if it could;
But if obedience, Lord, in me do grow,
I shall one day be better than I know.

2. The worst power of an evil mood is this--
It makes the bastard self seem in the right,
Self, self the end, the goal of human bliss.
But if the Christ-self in us be the might
Of saving God, why should I spend my force
With a dark thing to reason of the light--
Not push it rough aside, and hold obedient course?

3. Back still it comes to this: there was a man
Who said, "I am the truth, the life, the way:"--
Shall I pass on, or shall I stop and hear?--
"Come to the Father but by me none can:"
What then is this?--am I not also one
Of those who live in fatherless dismay?
I stand, I look, I listen, I draw near.

The above is excerpted from George MacDonald's A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul (Public Domain, 1880). For further information see this post. These are the entries for/from January 28th through February 3rd.