George Macdonald poem about asthma

George Macdonald was the one writer who had the greatest impact on men like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Notice how he pictures asthma as Satan himself who is out to destroy him by taking his breath and life away. Macdonald knows that asthma is a means that God is using to make him a man truly alive. He suffers, struggles for each breath, yet he knows that even God's Angel of Death can only bring him deliverance. God’s work in him will be done and he will finally be the man he was meant to be, full of life. 

Suffering and death in Christ humanize us. 

The glory of God is man fully alive. Gloria Dei est vivens homo

- St. Irenaeus 

A good theme to contemplate during Lent. 

The Asthmatic Man To The Satan That Binds Him 

By George Macdonald 

Satan, avaunt! Nay, take thine hour, 

Thou canst not daunt, 

Thou hast no power; 

Be welcome to thy nest, 

Though it be in my breast. 

Burrow amain; 

Dig like a mole; 

Fill every vein With half-burnt coal; 

Puff the keen dust about, 

And all to choke me out. 

Fill music’s ways 

With creaking cries, 

That no loud praise 

May climb the skies; 

And on my labouring chest 

Lay mountains of unrest. 

My slumber steep In dreams of haste, 

That only sleep, 

No rest, I taste- 

With stiflings, rimes of rote, 

And fingers on my throat. 

Satan, thy might I do defy; 

Live core of night I patient lie: 

A wind comes up the gray 

Will blow thee clean away. 

Christ’s angel, Death, 

All radiant white, 

With one cold breath 

Will scare thee quite, 

And give my lungs an air 

As fresh as answered prayer. 

So, Satan, do Thy worst with me 

Until the True Shall set me free, 

And end what he began, 

By making me a man.

Source: https://pickmeuppoetry.org/the-asthmatic-man-to-the-satan-that-binds-him-by-george-macdonald/