by Edith Nesbit
The garden watered, and the pleasance swept.
Yet — if you must — go now:
Go, with my blessing filling both your hands,
And, mid the desert sands
Which life drifts deep round every garden wall,
Make your new festival
Of bud and blossom — red rose and green leaf.
No blight born of my grief
Shall touch your garden, love; but my heart’s prayer
Shall draw down blessings on you from the air,
And all we learned of leaf and plant and tree
Shall serve you when you walk no more with me
In garden ways; and when with her you tread
The pleasant ways with blossoms overhead
And when she asks, “How did you come to know
The secrets of the ways these green things grow?”
Then you will answer — and I, please God, hear,
“I had another garden once, my dear”.
SONG. I HEAR THE WAVES TO-NIGHT
I HEAR the waves to-night
Piteously calling, calling
Though the light
Of the kind moon is falling,
Like kisses, on the sea
That calls for sunshine, dear, as my soul calls for thee.
I see the sea lie gray
Wrinkling her brows in sorrow,
Hear her say: —
“Bright love of yesterday, return to-morrow,
Sun, I am thine, am thine!”
Oh sea, thy love will come again, but what of mine?
RENUNCIATION.
ROSE of the desert of my heart,
Moon of the night that is my soul,
Thou can’st not know how sweet thou art,
Nor what wild tides thy beams control.
For all thy heart a garden is,
Thy soul is like a dawn of May.
And garden and dawn might both be his,
Who from them both must turn away.
Oh, garden of the Spring’s delight!
Oh, dewy dawn of perfect noon!
I will not pluck thy roses white
Or warm thy May-time into June.
I can but bless thee, moon and rose,
And journey far and very far
To where the night no moonbeam shows,
To where no happy roses are!
III.
THE VEIL OF MAYA.
SWEET, I have loved before. I know
This longing that invades my days;
This shape that haunts life’s busy ways
I know since long and long ago.
This starry mystery of delight
That floats across my eager eyes,
This pain that makes earth Paradise,
These magic songs of day and night —
I know them for the things they are:
A passing pain, a longing fleet,
A shape that soon I shall not meet,
A fading dream of veil and star.
Yet, even as my lips proclaim
The wisdom that the years have lent,
Your absence is joy’s banishment,
And life’s one music is your name.
I love you to my heart’s hid core:
Those other loves? how should one learn
From marshlights how the great fires burn?
Ah, no! I never loved before!
SONG. THE SUNSHINE OF YOUR PRESENCE LIES
THE sunshine of your presence lies
On the glad garden of my heart
And bids the leaves of silence part
To show the flowers to your dear eyes,
And flower on flower blooms there and dies
And still new buds awakened spring,
For sunshine makes the garden wise,
To know the time for blossoming.
Night is no time for blossoming,
Your garden then dreams otherwise,
Of vanished Summer, vanished Spring,
And how the dearest flower first dies.
Yet from your ministering eyes
Though night hath drawn me far apart
On the still garden of my heart
The moonlight of your memory lies.
TO VERA, WHO ASKED A SONG.
IF I only had time!
I could make you a rhyme.
But my time is kept flying
By smiling and sighing
And living and dying for you.
The song-seed, I sow it,
I water and hoe it,
But never can grow it.
Ah, traitress, you know it!
What is a poor poet to do?
Ah, let me take breath!
I am harried to death
By the loves and the graces
That crowd where your face is
That lurk in your laces and throng.
Call them off for a minute,
Once let me begin it
The devil is in it
If I can not spin it
As sweet as a linnet, your song!
THE POET TO HIS LOVE.
ALL the flight of thoughts here, shy, bold, scared, intrusive,
Fluttering in the sun, between the green and blue,
Wheeling, whirling, poising, lovely and elusive,
How to cage the flying thoughts, my winged delight, for you?
Set a springe of rhyme, and hope to catch them in it?
Strew my love as grain to lure them to the snare?
Watch the hours built up, slow minute piled on minute?
Still the wide sky guards their flight, and still the cage is bare.
Gleam of hovering feathers, brushing me to flout me!
Wings, be weary! Rest! Who loves you more than I?
Caught? Oh fluttering pinions whitening air about me!
Rustling wings, and distant flight, and empty cage and sky!
THE MAIDEN’S PRAYER.
SPRING, pretty Spring, what treasure do you bring to me?
Green grass and buttercups, cherry-bloom and may?
Sunshine to be glad with me, and little birds to sing to me?
Warm nests to call me along the woodland way?
Spring, happy Spring, what wonder will you do for me?
Light the tulip lanterns, and set the furze a-fire?
Fill your sky with sails of cloud on waves of living blue for me?
Show me green cornfields and budding of the briar?
Spring, darling Spring, my days will not return to me,
You who see them fleeting, you, all time above,
You who move the whole world’s heart, ah move one heart to turn to me,
— Bring me a lover, and teach me how to love!
SONG. LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG
“LOVE me little, love me long,”
Is the burden of my song,
And if nothing more may be
Little shall suffice for me.
But if you could crown with flowers
All my radiant, festal hours,
And console for hours of sorrow
Love me more with each to-morrow.
And if you would turn my days
To one splendid hymn of praise,
And set hopes like stars above me
Love me much, and always love me!
THE MAGIC FLOWER.
THROUGH many days and many days
The seed of love lay hidden close;
We walked the dusty tiresome ways
Where never a leaf or blossom grows.
And in the darkness, all the while,
The little seed its heart uncurled,
And we by many a weary mile
Travelled towards it, round the world.
To the hid centre of the maze
At last we came, and there we found —
O happy day, O day of days!
— Twin seed-leaves breaking holy ground.
We dropped life’s joys, a garnered sheaf,
And spell-bound watche
d, still hour by hour,
Magic on magic, leaf by leaf,
The unfolding of our love’s white flower.
LA DERNIERE ROBE DE SOI.
OH, silken gown, all pink and pretty,
Bought, quite a bargain, in the City,
Your ill-trained soul full false has played me —
No Paris gown would have betrayed me.
You knew, my pretty silken treasure,
I must not wed for love or pleasure,
But for a settlement and title;
Yet you encouraged his recital!
He said — oh, faithless gown, you listened
While on your sheen two tear drops glistened —
He said . . . let love to music set it,
I’ll never speak it — nor forget it!
“No, no!” I cried, I tried to save you —
False gown, you showed the tears I gave you!
You looked discreet when first I found you.
How could you let his arm go round you?
You darling dress — I’ll smooth your creases,
I’ll wear you till you drop to pieces;
But poor men’s wives wear cotton only —
Dear gown — I hope you won’t feel lonely!
THE LEAST POSSIBLE.
DEAR goddess of the shining shrine
Where all my votive tapers burn,
Where every gold-embroidered thought
And all my flowers of life are brought
— With many, alas! that are not mine —
What will you give me in return?
The bow in Bond Street — in the Park
The smile all worship on your lips,
The courteous word at dinner — dance —
But never a blush — a conscious glance;
At most, at Henley, in the dark,
Your fleet mistaken finger-tips?
Ah, just for once, once only, be
An altar-server — stoop and set me
Upon the altar richly wrought
Of your most secret flower-sweet thought:
One nightlight’s flicker burn for me
Before you sleep and quite forget me.
EN TOUT CAS.
WHEN I am glad I need your eyes
To be the stars of Paradise;
Your lips to be the seal of all
The joy life grants, and dreams recall;
Your hand, to lie my hands between
What time we walk the garden green.
But most in grief I need your face
To lean to mine in the desert place;
Your lips to mock the evil years,
To sweeten me my cup of tears,
Your eyes to shine, in cloud’s despite,
Your hands to hold mine through the night.
APPEAL.
Daphnis dearest, wherefore weave me
Webs of lies lest truth should grieve me?
I could pardon much, believe me:
Dower me, Daphnis, or bereave me,
Kill me, kill me, love me, leave me —
Damn me, dear, but don’t deceive me!
ST. VALENTINE’S DAY.
THE South is a dream of flowers
With a jewel for sky and sea,
Rose-crowns for the dancing hours,
Gold fruits upon every tree;
But cold from the North
The wind blows forth
That blows my love to me.
The stars in the South are gold
Like lamps between sky and sea;
The flowers that the forests hold
Like stars between tree and tree;
But little and white
Is the pale moon’s light
That lights my love to me.
In the South the orange grove
Makes dusk by the dusky sea,
White palaces wrought for love
Gleam white between tree and tree,
But under bare boughs
Is the little house
Warm-lit for my love and me.
CHAGRIN D’AMOUR.
IF Love and I were all alone
I might forget to grieve,
And for his pleasure and my own
Might happier garlands weave;
But you sit there, and watch us wear
The mourning wreaths you wove:
And while such mocking eyes you bear
I am not friends with Love.
Withdraw those cruel eyes, and let
Me search the garden through
That I may weave, ere Love be set,
The wreath of Love for you;
Till you, whom Love so well adorns,
Its hidden thorns discover,
And know at last what crown of thorns
It was you gave your lover.
BRIDAL EVE.
GOOD-NIGHT, my Heart, my Heart, good-night —
Oh, good and dear and fair,
With lips of life and eyes of light
And roses in your hair.
To-morrow brings the other crown,
The orange blossoms, Sweet,
And then the rose will be cast down
With lilies at your feet.
But in your soul a garden stands
Where fair the white rose blows —
God, teach my foolish clumsy hands
The way to tend my rose.
That in the white-rose garden still
The lily may bloom fair
God help my heart and soul and will
To keep the lily there.
LOVE AND LIFE.
LOVE only sings when Love is young,
When Love is young and still at play,
How shall we count the sweet songs sung
When Love and Joy kept holiday?
But now Love has to earn his bread
By lifelong stress and toil of tears,
He finds his nest of song-birds dead
That sang so sweet in other years.
For Love’s a man now, strong and brave,
To fight for you, for you to live,
And Love, that once such bright songs gave,
Has better things than songs to give;
He gives you now a lifelong faith,
A hand to help in joy or pain,
And he will sing no more, till Death
Shall come to make him young again!
FROM THE ITALIAN.
AS a little child whom his mother has chidden,
Wrecked in the dark in a storm of weeping,
Sleeps with his tear-stained eyes closed hidden
And, with fists clenched, sobs still in his sleeping,
So in my breast sleeps Love, O white lady,
What does he care though the rest are playing,
With rattles and drums in the woodlands shady,
Happy children, whom Joy takes maying!
Ah, do not wake him, lest you should hear him
Scolding the others, breaking their rattles,
Smashing their drums, when their play comes near him —
Love who, for me, is a god of battles!
IV.
OUT OF THE FULNESS OF THE HEART THE MOUTH SPEAKETH.
In answer to those who have said that English Poets
give no personal love to their country.
ENGLAND, my country, austere in the clamorous council of nations,
Set in the seat of the mighty, wielding the sword of the strong,
Have we but sung of your glory, firm in eternal foundations?
Are not your woods and your meadows the core of our heart and our song?
O dear fields of my country, grass growing green, glowing golden,
Green in the patience of winter, gold in the pageant of spring,
Oaks and young larches awaking, wind-flowers and violets blowing,
What, if God sets us to singing, what save you shall we sing?
Who but our England is fair through the veil of her poets’ praises,
What but the pastoral f
ace, the fruitful, beautiful breast?
Are not your poets’ meadows starred with the English daisies?
Were not the wings of their song-birds fledged in an English nest?
Songs of the leaves in the sunlight, songs of the fern-brake in shadow,
Songs of the world of the woods and songs of the marsh and the mere,
Are they not English woods, dear English marshland and meadow?
Have not your poets loved you? England, are you not dear?
Shoulders of upland brown laid dark to the sunset’s bosom,
Living amber of wheat, and copper of new-ploughed loam,
Downs where the white sheep wander, little gardens in blossom,
Roads that wind through the twilight up to the lights of home.
Lanes that are white with hawthorn, dykes where the sedges shiver,
Hollows where caged winds slumber, moorlands where winds wake free,
Sowing and reaping and gleaning, spring and torrent and river,
Are they not more, by worlds, than the whole of the world can be?
Is there a corner of land, a furze-fringed rag of a by-way,
Coign of your foam-white cliffs or swirl of your grass-green waves,
Leaf of your peaceful copse, or dust of your strenuous highway,
But in our hearts is sacred, dear as our cradles, our graves?
Is not each bough in your orchards, each cloud in the skies above you,
Is not each byre or homestead, furrow or farm or fold,
Dear as the last dear drops of the blood in the hearts that love you,
Filling those hearts till the love is more than the heart can hold?
Therefore the song breaks forth from the depths of the hidden fountain
Singing your least frail flower, your raiment of seas and skies,
Singing your pasture and cornfield, fen and valley and mountain,
England, desire of my heart, England, delight of mine eyes!
Take my song too, my country: many a son and debtor
Pays you in praise and homage out of your gifts’ full store;
Life of my life, my England, many will praise you better,
None, by the God that made you, ever can love you more!
SUMMER SONG.
THERE are white moon daisies in the mist of the meadow
Where the flowered grass scatters its seeds like spray,
There are purple orchis by the wood-ways’ shadow,