| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | Sonnet: ‘This infant world has taken long to make’ | | By George MacDonald (1824–1905) |
| | | THIS infant world has taken long to make, | |
| Nor hast Thou done with it, but mak’st it yet, | |
| And wilt be working on when death has set | |
| A new mound in some churchyard for my sake. | |
| On flow the centuries without a break; | 5 |
| Uprise the mountains, ages without let; | |
| The lichens suck; the hard rock’s breast they fret; | |
| Years more than past the young earth yet will take. | |
| But in the dumbness of the rolling time | |
| No veil of silence shall encompass me— | 10 |
| Thou wilt not once forget and let me be; | |
| Rather Thou wouldst some old chaotic prime | |
| Invade, and, moved by tenderness sublime, | |
| Unfold a world that I, thy child, might see. | | | | |
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