Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  Beneath that shadow safety seemed to lie;

  And as he knelt before the altar there,

  Beside the King of Heaven’s agony

  Light seemed all pangs His priest might have to bear —

  His grief, his love, his bitter wild regret,

  Would they not be a fitting sacrifice,

  A well-loved offering, blessed in the eyes

  That never scorned a sad heart’s offering yet?

  But as the ghostly moon began to fade,

  And moonlight glimmered into ghostlier dawn,

  The shadow that the crucifix had made

  With twilight mixed; and with it seemed withdrawn

  The peace that with its shadowy shape began,

  And as the dim east brightened, slowly ceased

  The wild devotion that had filled the priest —

  And with full sunlight he sprang up — a man!

  ‘Ten thousand curses on my priestly vow —

  The hated vow that held me back from thee!

  Down with the cross! no death-dark emblems now!

  I have done with death: life wakes for thee and me!’

  He tore the cross from out his breast, and trod

  The sacred symbol underfoot and cried,

  ‘I am set free, unbound, unsanctified!

  I am thy lover — not the priest of God!’

  He strode straight down the church and passed along

  The grave-set garden’s dewy grass-grown slope:

  The woods about were musical with song,

  The world was bright with youth, and love, and hope;

  The flowers were sweet, and sweet his visions were,

  The sunlight glittered on the lily’s head

  And on the royal roses, rich and red,

  And never had the earth seemed half so fair.

  Soon would he see her — soon would kneel before

  Her worshipped feet, and cry, ‘I am thine own,

  As thou art mine, now, and for evermore!’

  And she should kiss the lips that had not known

  The kiss of love in any vanished year.

  And as he dreamed of his secured delight,

  Round the curved road there slowly came in sight

  A mourning band, and in their midst a bier.

  He hastened to pass on. Why should he heed

  A bier — a blot on earth’s awakened face?

  For to his love-warm heart it seemed indeed

  That in sweet summer’s bloom death had no place.

  Yet still he glanced — a pale concealing fold

  Veiled the dead, quiet face — and yet — and yet —

  Did he not know that hand, so white and wet?

  Did he not know those dripping curls of gold?

  ‘We came to you to know what we should do,

  Father: we found her body in the stream,

  And how it happed, God knows!’ One other knew —

  Knew that of him had been her last wild dream —

  Knew the full reason of that life-disdain —

  Knew how the shame of hopeless love confessed

  And unreturned had seemed to stain her breast,

  Till only death could make her clean again.

  They left her in the church where sunbeams bright

  Gilded the wreathèd oak and carven stone

  With golden floods of consecrating light;

  And here at last, together and alone,

  The lovers met, and here upon her hair

  He set his lips, and dry-eyed kissed her face,

  And in the stillness of the holy place

  He spoke in tones of bitter blank despair:

  ‘Oh, lips so quiet, eyes that will not see!

  Oh, clinging hands that not again will cling!

  This last poor sin may well be pardoned thee,

  Since for the right’s sake thou hast done this thing.

  Oh, poor weak heart, for ever laid to rest,

  That could no longer strive against its fate,

  For thee high heaven will unbar its gate,

  And thou shalt enter in and shalt be blessed.

  ‘The chances were the same for us,’ he said,

  ‘Yet thou hast won, and I have lost, the whole;

  Thou wouldst not live in sin, and thou art dead —

  But I — against thee I have weighed my soul,

  And, losing thee, have lost my soul as well.

  I have cursed God, and trampled on His cross;

  Earth has no measurement for all my loss,

  But I shall learn to measure it in hell!’

  CUL-DE-SAC

  COULD I hope that when the brain,

  Tired of questions answerless,

  Shall slip off the bonds of pain

  That enslave it and possess,

  I should know how little worth

  Were the little things of earth.

  ‘Does it matter,’ could I say,

  ‘Whether she were false or true?

  Whether life was gold or grey?

  Whether skies were grey or blue?

  All this matters less, it seems,

  Than the threads of broken dreams.’

  We may long to rest from strife,

  Cease to question or to grieve;

  But the sharpest ills of life

  Nothing will reverse, retrieve;

  For when we at last have rest,

  We shall know not we are blest.

  While we know, we have the ache;

  Consciousness with pain will cease.

  Sleep’s joy comes not while we wake —

  Night of life means dawn of peace,

  But of peace which cannot be

  Ever known by her or me.

  Bow the back beneath the cross,

  Stagger on a few steps more,

  Bear the doubt, the strain, the loss,

  As we had to do before!

  When at last the burdens fall,

  We shall know it not at all.

  THE MOORS

  NOT in rich glebe and ripe green garden only

  Does Summer weave her sweet resistless spells,

  But in high hills, and moorlands waste and lonely,

  The vast enchantment of her presence dwells.

  Wide sky, and sky-wide waste of thyme and heather,

  Perpetual sleepy hum of golden bees —

  If you and I were only there together,

  Free from the weight of all your garden’s trees!

  The north is mine; though bred by elm and meadow,

  Pines, torrents, rocks, and moors my heart loves best;

  I love the plover’s wail, the cleft hill’s shadow,

  The sun-browned grass that is the skylark’s nest.

  Ah, yes! you too I love, dear wistful pleader,

  You most I love, dear southern rose, half-blown,

  And rather lounge with you beneath your cedar,

  Than greet the moor’s wide heaven-on-earth alone.

  SONG. A MONTH OF GREEN AND TENDER MAY

  A MONTH of green and tender May,

  All woods and walks awake with flowers,

  Wide sunlit meadows for the day,

  And moon-bathed paths for evening hours;

  A bright brief dream that had no past,

  And of the future knew no fear;

  A kiss at first, a sigh at last —

  Only last year.

  Another spring, dim soulless woods;

  No farewell kiss, no parting tear;

  No stone to mark where silence broods

  O’er the dead love we found so dear.

  But, oh, to me the green seems grey,

  The budding branches all are sere,

  For sweet love’s sake, that died one day,

  Only last year.

  RICHBOROUGH CASTLE

  THESE three grey walls are still stout and strong,

  Though the fourth wide wall has crumbled away

  Where the sea swept by when the land was young,<
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  And the great waves thundered along the bay,

  Under the sailing seagull’s feather,

  Wildly white in the stormy weather,

  And, murmuring ever a restless song,

  Shone, crumpled green, on a sunny day.

  Through eighteen hundred years of our time,

  With their storms and sieges, these walls have stood,

  Till the cliff that the waves once strove to climb

  Is left in a meadow solitude;

  And now no sea-gulls’ nests are there,

  But ash-trees and thorns make the cliff-side fair,

  And the green of the leaves, and the white of the lime,

  And the red of the berries is sweet and good.

  Over the walls, whence eagle-eyed

  The Romans looked for the coming foes,

  Swift keen-tongued snakes now curl and glide

  Where the heavy weight of the ivy grows.

  Oh, hand that builded, oh, scheming brain,

  So long made one with the dust again,

  Your old cement and your walls abide,

  But stronger than they are the ivy and rose!

  How the whole dear world is golden and green

  With the marshy meadows, the dimpled wheat,

  The hot strong sunshine, the ivy’s sheen,

  And the high white lights on the shiny beet.

  See the far blue line — the retreating sea!

  It is good to be here, it is good to be;

  Whatever life is, or whatever has been,

  To be now — to be here, is nothing but sweet!

  There’s an underground passage here, they say,

  Here is the entrance with green set round;

  You must stoop your head in this low-roofed way,

  Leave day, light candles — pass underground.

  Here, under the fields, it is damp and cold,

  And whatever secret the place may hold

  It has held it closely for many a day,

  And will hold it for more in its hush profound.

  Down here, last year, so the gossips tell,

  Some archæological learned bore

  Went chipping with hammer and chisel as well

  To chip his way to the secret’s core —

  Shut away from the sun and the browning wheat,

  The whitening barley, the purple beet —

  In the dark with the damp, the earthy smell,

  While the days burned through that return no more.

  Oh, fool! not to see that the green of the trees,

  The blue of the sky and the blue of the sea,

  The placid pasture, the baby breeze,

  And the outspread meadows’ tranquillity,

  With eyes to see them, are more than worth

  The whole of the secrets of musty earth.

  What secret outweighs such delights as these,

  Or pays one lost moment’s felicity?

  Are we wise, we two, when we try to pierce

  To the heart of things, to our own hearts’ heart,

  To learn the secret springs of the years,

  And what that is of which we are part?

  Free will — the Absolute — matter — mind —

  Ah, we came like the wind and we go like the wind!

  Would solving life’s mysteries dry our tears,

  Or absolute knowledge heal souls that smart?

  And meantime one might lose what I’d die to keep —

  The power to delight in a day like this,

  In the brown wings’ whir, and the faint-bell’d sheep,

  In the million things that the millions miss.

  And, think, had it happened one’s in-turned eyes

  Had missed the gateway of Paradise,

  Had one questioned of dreams till one fell asleep,

  Having never dreamed, oh, my Dream, of your kiss!

  AUGUST

  LEAVE me alone, for August’s sleepy charm

  Is on me, and I will not break the spell;

  My head is on the mighty Mother’s arm:

  I will not ask if life goes ill or well.

  There is no world! — I do not care to know

  Whence aught has come, nor whither it shall go.

  I want to wander over pastures still,

  Where sheared white sheep and mild-eyed cattle graze;

  To climb the thymy, clover-covered hill,

  To look down on the valley’s hot blue haze;

  And on the short brown turf for hours to lie

  Gazing straight up into the clear, deep sky,

  I want to walk through crisp gold harvest fields,

  Through meadows yellowed by the August heat;

  To loiter through the cool dim wood, that yields

  Such perfect flowers and quiet so complete —

  The happy woods, where every bud and leaf

  Is full of dreams as life is full of grief.

  I want to think no more of all the pain

  That in the city thrives, a poison flower —

  The eternal loss, the never-coming gain,

  The lifelong woe — the joy that lives an hour,

  Bright, evanescent as the dew that dawn

  Shows on this silent, wood-encircled lawn.

  I want to pull the honey-bud that twines

  About the blackberries and gold-leaf sloes;

  To part the boughs where the rare water shines,

  Tread the soft bank whereby the bulrush grows —

  I want to be no more myself, but be

  Made one with all the beauty that I see.

  Oh, happy country, myriad voiced and dear,

  I have no heart, no eyes, except for you;

  Yours are the only voices I will hear,

  Yours is the only bidding I will do:

  You bid me be at peace, and let alone

  That loud, rough world where peace is never known.

  Yet through your voices comes a sterner cry,

  A voice I cannot silence if I would;

  It mars the song the lark sings to the sky,

  It breaks the changeful music of the wood.

  ‘Back to your post — a charge you have to keep —

  Freedom is bleeding while her soldiers sleep.’

  Oh, heart of mine I have to carry here,

  Will you not let me rest a little while? —

  A space ‘mid doubtful fight and doubtful fear —

  A little space to see the Mother’s smile,

  To stretch my hands out to her, and possess

  No sense of aught but of her loveliness?

  Ah, just this power to feel how she is fair

  Means just the power to see how foul life is.

  How can I linger in the sacred air

  And taste the pure wine of the dear sun’s kiss

  When in the outer dark my brothers moan,

  Nor even guess the joys that I have known?

  Back the least soldier goes! To jar and fret,

  To hope uncrowned — faith tried — love wounded sore —

  To prayers that never have been answered yet,

  To dreams that must be dreams for evermore;

  To all that, after all, is far more dear

  Than all the joys of all the changing year.

  THE LAST ENVOY

  THIS wind, that through the silent woodland blows,

  O’er rippling corn and dreaming pastures goes

  Straight to the garden where the heart of spring

  Faints in the heart of summer’s earliest rose.

  Dimpling the meadow’s grassy green and grey,

  By furze that yellows all the common way,

  Gathering the gladness of the flowering broom,

  And too persistent fragrance of the may —

  Gathering whatever is of sweet and dear,

  The wandering wind has passed away from here,

  Has passed to where within your garden waits

  The concentrated sweetness of the year.
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  And in your leafed enclosure as you stood,

  Training your flowers to new beatitude —

  Ah! did you guess the wind that kissed your hair

  Had kissed my forehead in this solitude —

  Had kissed my lips, and gathered there the heat

  It breathed upon your mouth, my only sweet —

  Had gathered from my eyes the tender thought

  That drooped your eyes, and stirred your pulses’ beat?

  You only thought the sun’s caress too warm

  That lay upon your bosom and your arm;

  You did not guess the wind had brought from me

  The unacknowledged fancy’s fire and charm —

  You only said, ‘Too strong these sunlit skies,

  More dear the moments when the daylight dies!’

  And then you dreamed of meetings by your gate

  In sanctity of sunset and moonrise.

  To-night, when he shall come and meet you there,

  To kiss your lips and hands and eyes and hair,

  To light with love and hope youth’s waiting shrine —

  Think of my love, and my assured despair!

  To-night the wind will rob the languid flowers

  Of secret scents kept close through daylit hours;

  It will blow coolly over dewy lawns,

  Where the laburnums fall in silent showers.

  I, too, shall learn a secret then — shall wrest

  Life’s hidden things from out her languorous breast,

  Shall learn the way that leads away from life

  Into the land where nothing lives but rest.

  You will not know that the cold air you prize,

  After the stormy sweetness of his sighs,

  Is cold from blowing through a moonlit wood

  Over the hollow where a dead man lies!

  BABY’S BIRTHDAY

  G.T.A.

  BEFORE your life that is to come,

  Love stands with eager eyes, that vainly

  Seek to discern what gift may fit

  The slow unfolding years of it;

  And still Time’s lips are sealed and dumb,

  And still Love sees no future plainly.

  We cannot guess what flowers will spring

  Best in your garden, bloom most brightly;

  But some fair flowers in any plot

  Will spring and grow, and wither not;

  And such wish-flowers we gladly bring,

  And in that small hand lay them lightly.

  Baby, we wish that those dear eyes

  May see fulfilment of our dreaming,

  Those little feet may turn from wrong,

  Those hands to hold the right be strong,

  That heart be pure, that mind be wise