Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  Are wrapped in furs, warm hands and feet,

  And feast to-night in homes made bright

  With blazing logs and candle-light;

  Not dark like this, where we two sit,

  Who chose to work, and starve for it!

  Don’t go to sleep; you mustn’t sleep

  Here on the frozen floor! Yes, creep

  Closer to me. Oh, if I knew

  What is this something left to do!

  Listen to me! It’s Christmas Eve,

  When hearts grow warmer, I believe,

  And friends forget and friends forgive.

  What if we stifled down my pride,

  And put your bitter thoughts aside,

  And asked your father’s help once more?

  True, when we asked for it before,

  He turned and cursed us both, and swore

  That he disowned you. You and I

  Had made our bed, and there must lie;

  That he would help us not one whit,

  Though we should die for want of it.

  Now I shall ask his help again.

  It’s colder now than it was then;

  The cold creeps closer to life’s core —

  Death’s nearer to us than before;

  And when your father sees how near,

  He may relent, and save you, dear.

  For my sake, love! I am too weak

  To bear your tears upon my cheek,

  Your sobs against my heart, to bear

  Those eyes of yours, and their despair!

  Not faltering, my own pain I bore —

  I cannot bear yours any more!

  Stand up. You’re stiff? That will not last!

  The stairs are dark? They’ll soon be passed!

  You’re tired? My sweet, I know you are;

  But try to walk — it isn’t far.

  Oh, that the Christ they say was born

  On that dream-distant Christmas morn

  May hear and help us now! Be strong!

  Yes, lean on me. Perhaps ere long,

  All this, gone by, will only seem

  A half-remembered evil dream.

  Come; I will help you walk. We’ll try

  Just this last venture, you and I!

  II

  Failed! Back again in the ice-gloom

  Of our bare, bleak, rat-haunted room!

  The moon still looks — what does she care

  To see my moon-flower lying there?

  My rose, once red and white and fair,

  Now white and wan, and pinched and thin,

  Cold, through the coat I’ve wrapped her in,

  And shivering, even in her sleep,

  To hear how wakeful rats can keep.

  We dragged our weary faltering feet

  Through the bright noisy crowded street,

  And reached the square where, stern in stone,

  Her father’s town-house sulks alone.

  Sick, stupid, helpless, wretched, poor,

  We waited at her father’s door.

  They let us in. Then let us tread

  Through the warm hall with soft furs spread.

  Next, ‘Name and business.’ Oh, exact

  Were the man’s orders how to act,

  If e’er his master’s child should come

  To cross the threshold of her home!

  I told our name. The man ‘would see

  If any message was’ for me.

  We waited there without a word.

  How warm the whole house was! We heard

  Soft music with soft voices blent,

  And smelt sweet flowers with mingled scent,

  And heard the wine poured out — that chink

  That glass makes as the diners drink —

  The china clatter. We, at least,

  Appreciated that night’s feast.

  Then some one gave a note to me

  With insolent smile. I read: ‘When she

  Is tired of love and poverty,

  And chooses to return to what

  She left, the duties she forgot,

  And never see again this man,

  And be here as before — she can.’

  We came away: that much is clear;

  I don’t know how we got back here —

  I must have carried her somehow,

  And have been strong enough. And now

  She lies asleep — and I, awake,

  Must do this something for her sake —

  The only possible thing to do,

  Oh, love! to cut our soul in two,

  And take ‘this man’ away from you!

  If now I let your father know

  My choice is made, and that I go

  And you are here — oh, love! oh, wife!

  I break my heart and save your life.

  Doubt what to do? All doubt’s about

  The deeds that are not worth a doubt!

  This deed takes me, and I obey,

  And there is nothing left to say.

  Good-bye, dear eyes I cannot see —

  Weep only gently, eyes, for me;

  Dear lips, I’ve kissed and kissed again,

  Lose those encircling lines of pain;

  Dear face, so thin and faded now,

  Win back youth’s grace, and light, and glow;

  Oh, hands I hold in mine — oh, heart

  That holds mine in it — we must part!

  When you wake up, and find me fled,

  And find your father here instead,

  Will you not wonder how my feet

  Ever could turn from you, my sweet?

  Ah, no! your heart and mine are one;

  Our heart will tell you how ’twas done.

  No more we meet until I’ve won

  Enough to dare be happy on;

  And if I fail — I have known bliss,

  And bliss has bred an hour like this.

  I am past Fate’s harming — all her power

  Could mix nought bitterer than this hour.

  Good-bye — our room — our marriage life! —

  Oh, kiss me through your dreams, my wife!

  III

  I have grown rich! I have found out

  The thing men break their hearts about!

  I have dug gold, and gold, and sold

  My diggings, and reaped in more gold —

  Sowed that, and reaped again, and played

  For stakes, and always won, and made

  More money than we’ll ever spend,

  And have forborne one word to send.

  It has been easier for her so:

  To wait one year, and then to know

  How all is well, and how we two

  Shall part no more our whole lives through.

  It had been harder to have heard

  Some incomplete, imperfect word

  Of how I prospered, how despaired,

  How well I strove, how ill I fared,

  Or strove well and fared well, nor know

  Each day which way the scale would go;

  Rejoice, and grieve, and hope, and fear,

  As I have done throughout the year.

  The year is over now — the prize

  Is — all our lives of Paradise!

  Through all the year her lips and hands

  Have drawn me on with passion-bands,

  Her soul has held my soul, and taught

  The way of storming Fortune’s fort.

  My little love, those days of ours,

  Our dear delight, our sacred hours

  Have wrapped me round in all the year;

  And brought the gold and brought me here,

  And brought this hour than all more fair —

  Our triumph hour! What shall we care

  For all the past’s most maddening pain

  When you are in my arms again?

  The yellow dust I loved to hold

  Was like your hair’s less heavy gold;

  The clear, deep sea, that bore me hence,

  Wa
s like your eyes’ grey innocence;

  And not one fair thing could I see

  But somehow seemed yourself to me.

  The very work I had to do

  Easier than rest was, done for you.

  And through my dreams you walked all night

  And filled sleep’s byways with delight!

  How I have wondered every day

  How you would look, and what would say

  On that same day! ‘Perhaps she paints,

  Thinks of our lessons — prays to saints

  With my name in her prayers — or goes

  Through gardens, heaping rose on rose.

  How I love roses! Or mayhap

  Sits with some work dropped in her lap,

  And dreams and dreams — what could there be

  For her to dream about but me?’

  This London — how I hated it

  A year ago! It now seems fit

  Even to be our meeting-place.

  It holds the glory of her face,

  The wonder of her eyes, the grace

  Of lovely lines and curves — in fine,

  The soul of sweetness that is mine!

  I’ll seek her at her father’s; say,

  ‘I claim my wife. I will repay

  A hundredfold all you have spent

  On keeping me in banishment,

  On keeping her in affluence,

  At her heart’s dearest coin’s expense!

  That is past now, and I have come

  To take my wife and sweetheart home,

  To show her all my golden store,

  My heart, hers to the very core,

  And never leave her any more!’

  But just before that hour supreme,

  Close here our old house is, that dream

  And daylight have been showing me

  The year through. I would like to see

  That room I found so hard to leave,

  So hard to keep, last Christmas Eve.

  Faith’s easy now! There is a God

  Who trod the earth we two have trod;

  He pays me for our pain last year,

  For all these months of longing, fear,

  Doubt and uncertainty — outright,

  By letting me come here to-night

  And just contrast that dead despair

  With the Earth-Heaven we two shall share!

  Just one look at the old room’s door,

  If I can get no chance of more;

  Yet gold will buy most things — may buy

  The leave to see that room. We’ll try!

  May I go up? Just once to see

  The room that sheltered her and me? —

  My God! the rapture of to-day

  Has sent me mad; — you did not say

  She died the night I went away!

  FOR THE NEW YEAR

  FLUSHED with a crimson sunrise beauty,

  The fair new year its promise gave;

  Such dreams we had of love, of duty,

  Of heights to scale, of foes to brave!

  Oh, how hope’s fire our future lighted —

  How much to do, how much to know,

  Yet on its brink we shrank affrighted

  A year ago.

  And now the year is done — its pleasure

  So brief, so bright — its hours of pain;

  Some moments’ memories we treasure,

  Some recollections loathe in vain.

  Oh, for a brain where could not waken

  Remembrances of purpose crossed,

  Of trusts abandoned, aims forsaken,

  And chances lost!

  The changing seasons thrust upon us

  Another year, fair-faced and new;

  What evil have the old years done us

  That this in its turn will not do?

  This, too, will die, and leave us grieving

  For all the ills its arms enfold —

  For faiths betrayed, for friends deceiving,

  And love grown cold.

  We have been fooled. The hopes that fooled us —

  We know them now — have been a lie;

  The star that led, the light that ruled us —

  We scorn them, and we pass them by.

  Shut out hope’s light; past is the season

  When rose-red glow seemed good to see.

  Look — by the cold white light of reason,

  These things shall be:

  A long, dim vista, blank and dreary —

  The same hard failure, small success;

  The same tired heart, the brain still weary

  Of its intense self-consciousness;

  The old despair, the old repining,

  And, through the future’s deepest night,

  Down life’s untrodden ways still shining,

  The old hope’s light!

  THE FERRY

  DRAW close the curtains, and shut out

  The spring’s green glow and glitter;

  The resurrection-life of spring

  To me brings no fresh blossoming;

  I’m wearied of the flowers about —

  The London sparrows’ twitter.

  If I could dream — if I could see

  Once more the slow smooth river,

  The narrow path she used to tread,

  The sunlight on her little head,

  The white fire of the hawthorn tree —

  But I shall see them never.

  Only the boat in dreams I steer

  Among the tufted rushes,

  I see her white gown through the grass,

  That thrills with love to feel her pass;

  Only in dreams again I hear

  Those unforgotten thrushes.

  Sometimes in dreams I see her stand,

  Her hand held out, and making

  The sweet unreal so vivid seem,

  I only know it is a dream

  When I reach out to take her hand,

  And find no hand for taking.

  So once she stood; and I — too weak

  To dare to say, ‘I love her’ —

  I dropped her hand, and took the oar

  And rowed her to the farther shore;

  I had my chance, and did not speak,

  And chances now are over.

  How dark the room has grown! — yet no,

  The sky is blue above me;

  This is the boat — the hawthorn tree

  Is showering blossoms down on me;

  And she is here as long ago,

  And she has learned to love me!

  LOVERS’ QUARRELS

  JOIN hands, my dear, clasp long and close and fast,

  Even this present we shall soon call past,

  And lay among the unforgotten days,

  Not the less loved because they could not last.

  Make haste to put our hasty words away,

  And hide them with dead leaves of yesterday,

  Cast them aside among forgotten things,

  Keep the love warm that turns to green life’s grey.

  Each little thorn that pricks these present hours

  Is sure to hide under our memories’ flowers,

  Till we shall say, turning the dry wreath over,

  ‘How sweet they were — these dear dead days of ours!’

  WHEN!

  WHEN I am young again I’ll hoard my bliss,

  Nor deem that inexhaustible it is,

  Remembering old age comes after this,

  Joy grows to pain;

  Nor waste one moment of youth’s rose-sweet hours,

  Nor trample one of all its countless flowers,

  But drink the summer sun and soft spring showers,

  When I am young again.

  I will be wise with wisdom dearly won

  By those who through life’s wood have nearly run;

  Learn what to do, and what to leave undone,

  Risk or refrain.

  I will not seek into my mouth to take

  The bitter apple of the ac
rid lake,

  But at clear fountains all my thirsts will slake,

  When I am young again.

  I will not brush the bloom to reach the core,

  Remembering how it chanced with me before,

  And bloom once lost returns not any more,

  Hard cores remain:

  I will fence round with prudence and secure

  A lasting bloom whose freshness shall endure;

  Oh, I will guard my peach of youth, be sure,

  When I am young again.

  When I am young again, I’ll spend no breath

  On bitter words the heart remembereth

  When bitterness is swallowed up by Death

  Holding sole reign;

  I’ll love so well that if they pass to sleep

  Before me, I shall have no watch to keep

  Over their tears-only my tears to weep

  When I am young again.

  I will not lightly joy nor idly grieve,

  Nor for a heaven itself one soul deceive,

  Nor will I be deceived, vainly believe,

  Nor love in vain.

  Come back, lost youth! Ah, Fate, that one gift give!

  Then I will show that I have learned to live;

  Youth shall be wise — and two and two make five —

  When I am young again!

  SONG. WE LOVED, MY LOVE, AND NOW IT SEEMS

  WE loved, my love, and now it seems

  Our love has brought to birth

  Friendship, the fairest child of dreams,

  The rarest gift of earth.

  Soon die love’s roses fresh and frail,

  And when their bloom is o’er,

  Not all our heart-wrung tears avail

  To give them life once more.

  But when true love with friendship lives,

  As now, for thee and me,

  Love brings the roses — Friendship gives

  Them immortality.

  QUAND MÊME

  FOR A PICTURE OF AN OLD MAN PAUSING IN HIS WORK OF CUTTING THISTLES TO LET A LITTLE GIRL PICK A FLOWER

  AGE pauses on his toilsome way

  To let youth pluck her flowers of play;

  Flowers are not always, but we may

  Cut thorns and thistles any day.

  Would Fate but hold her hand one hour,

  Then might we pluck love’s perfect flower;

  Yet full security might miss

  The perfume of one hour like this.

  For all our joys are snatched from Fate,

  Through years her ban makes desolate;

  We wrest our love from doubt and fear,

  And find it so more sweet, more dear.

  LOVE AND KNOWLEDGE

  THOUGH you and I so long have been so near —

  Have felt each other’s heart-beats hour by hour,

  Have watered, plucked, and trampled passion’s flower,

  Have known so many days so very dear —