by Edith Nesbit
And they go happy and whole — blessing Love’s ministerings,
“And, having healed them, I shall crave your leave
To leave you — for to-night I journey far.
But I have kept your gate this Easter Eve,
And now your house to heaven shines like a star
To show the Angels where God’s children are;
And in this day your house has served God more
Than in the praise and prayer of all its years before.
“Yet I must leave you, though I fain would stay,
For there are other gates I go to keep
Of houses round whose walls, long day by day,
Shut out of hope and love, poor sinners weep —
Barred folds that keep out God’s poor wandering sheep —
I must teach these that gates where God comes in
Must not be shut at all to pain, or want, or sin.
“The voice of prayer is very soft and weak,
And sorrow and sin have voices very strong;
Prayer is not heard in heaven when those twain speak,
The voice of prayer faints in the voice of wrong
By the just man endured — oh, Lord, how long? —
If ye would have your prayers in heaven be heard,
Look that wrong clamour not with too intense a word.
“But when true love is shed on want and sin,
Their cry is changed, and grows to such a voice
As clamours sweetly at heaven to be let in —
Such sound as makes the saints in heaven rejoice;
Pure gold of prayer, purged of the vain alloys
Of idleness — that is the sound most dear
Of all the earthly sounds God leans from heaven to hear.
“Oh, brother, I must leave thee, and for me
The work is heavy, and the burden great.
Thine be this charge I lay upon thee: See
That never again stands barred thy abbey gate;
Look that God’s poor be not left desolate;
Ah me! that chidden my shepherds needs must be
When my poor wandering sheep have so great need of me.
“Brother, forgive thy Brother if he chide,
Thy Brother loves thee — and has loved — for see
The nails are in my hands, and in my side
The spear-wound; and the thorns weigh heavily
Upon my brow — brother, I died for thee —
For thee, and for my sheep that are astray,
And rose to live for thee, and them, on Easter Day!”
“My Master and my Lord!” the Abbot cried.
But, where that face had been, shone the new day;
Only on the marble by the Abbot’s side,
Where those dear feet had stood, a lily lay —
A lily white for the white Easter Day.
He sought the gate — no sorrow clamoured there —
And, not till then, he dared to sink his soul in prayer.
And from that day himself he kept the gate
Wide open; and the poor from far and wide,
The weary, and wicked, and disconsolate,
Came there for succour and were not denied;
The sick were healed, the repentant sanctified;
And from their hearts rises more prayer and praise
Than ever the abbey knew in all its prayer-filled days.
And there the Heavenly vision comes no more,
Only, each Easter now, a lily sweet
Lies white and dewy on the chancel floor
Where once had stood the beloved wounded feet;
And the old Abbot feels the nearing beat
Of wings that bring him leave at last to go
And meet his Master, where the immortal lilies grow.
VIA AMORIS.
I.
IT is not Love, this beautiful unrest,
This tremor of longing that invades my breast:
For Love is in his grave this many a year,
He will not rise — I do not wish him here.
It is not memory, for your face and eyes
Are not reflected where that dark pool lies:
It is not hope, for life makes no amends,
And hope and I are long no longer friends:
It is a ghost out of another Spring
It needs but little for its comforting —
That I should hold your hand and see your face
And muse a little in this quiet place,
Where, through the silence, I can hear you sigh
And feel you sadden, O Virgin Mystery,
And know my thought has in your thought begot
Sadness, its child, and that you know it not.
II.
If this were Love, if all this bitter pain
Were but the birth-pang of Love born again,
If through the doubts and dreams resolved, smiled
The prophetic promise of the holy child,
What should I gain? The Love whose dream-lips smiled
Could never be my own and only child,
But to Love’s birth would come, with the last pain,
Renunciation, also born again.
III.
If this were Love why should I turn away?
Am I not, too, made of the common clay?
Is life so fair, am I so fortunate,
I can refuse the capricious gift of Fate,
The sudden glory, the unhoped-for flowers,
The transfiguration of my earthly hours?
Come, Love! the house is garnished and is swept,
Washed clean with all the tears that I have wept,
Washed from the stain of my unworthy fears,
Hung with the splendid spoils of wasted years,
Lighted with lamps of hope, and curtained fast
Against the gathered darkness of the past.
I draw the bolts! I throw the portals wide,
The darkness rushes shivering to my side,
Love is not here — the darkness creeps about
My house wherein the lamps of hope die out.
Ah Love! it was not then your hand that came
Beating my door? your voice that called my name?
IV.
“It is not Love, it is not Love,” I said,
And bowed in fearful hope my trembling head.
“It is not Love, for Love could never rise
Out of the rock-hewn grave wherein he lies.”
But as I spake, the heavenly form drew near
Where close I clasped a hope grown keen as fear,
Upon my head His very hand He laid
And whispered, “It is I, be not afraid!”
V.
And this is Love, no rose-crowned laughing guest
By whom my passionate heart should be caressed,
But one re-risen from the grave; austere,
Cold as the grave, and infinitely dear,
To follow whom I lay the whole world down,
Take up the cross, bind on the thorny crown;
And, following whom, my bleeding pilgrim feet
Find the rough pathway sure and very sweet.
The august environment of mighty wings
Shuts out the snare of vain imaginings,
For by my side, crowned with Love’s death-white rose,
The Angel of Renunciation goes.
RETRO SATHANAS.
“REFUSE, refrain: for this is not the love
The Annunciation Angel warned you of;
This is the little candle, not the sun;
It burns, but will not warm, unhappy one!”
“But ah! suppose the sun should never shine,
Then what an anguish of regret were mine
To know that even from this I turned away!
Candles may serve, if there should be no day.”
“Nay, better to go cold your whole life long
Than do the sun, than do your soul such wrong:
And if the sun shine not, be life’s the blame
And yours the pride, who scorned the meaner flame.”
THE OLD DISPENSATION.
O THOU, who, high in heaven,
To man hast given
This clouded earthly life
All storm and strife,
Blasted with ice and fire,
Love and desire,
Filled with dead faith, and love
That change is master of —
O Thou, who mightest have given
To all Thy heaven,
But who, instead, didst give
This life we live —
Who feedest with blood and tears
The hungry years —
I make one prayer to Thee,
O Great God! grant it me.
Some day when summer shows
Her leaf, her rose,
God, let Thy sinner lie
Under Thy sky,
And feel Thy sun’s large grace
Upon his face;
Then grant him this, that he
May not believe in Thee!
THE NEW DISPENSATION.
OUT in the sun the buttercups are gold,
The daisies silver all the grassy lane,
And spring has given love a flower to hold,
And love lays blindness on the eyes of pain.
Within are still, chill aisles and blazoned panes
And carven tombs where memory weeps no more.
And from the lost and holy days remains
One saint beside the long-closed western door.
Outside the world goes laughing lest it weep,
With here and there some happy child at play;
A mother worshipping the babe asleep,
Or two young lovers dreaming ‘neath the May.
Within, the soul of love broods o’er the place;
The carven saint forgotten many a year
Still lifts to heaven his rapt adoring face
To pray, for those who leave him lonely here,
That once again the silent church may ring
With songs of joy triumphant over pain —
Ah! God, who makest the miracle of spring
Make Thou dead faith and love to rise again.
THE THREE KINGS.
WHEN the star in the East was lit to shine
The three kings journeyed to Palestine;
They came from the uttermost parts of earth
With long trains laden with gifts of worth.
The first king rode on a camel’s back,
He came from the land where the kings are black,
Bringing treasures desired of kings,
Rubies and ivory and precious things.
An elephant carried the second king,
He came from the land of the sun-rising,
And gems and gold and spices he bare
With broidered raiment for kings to wear.
The third king came without steed or train
From the misty land where the white kings reign.
He bore no gifts save the myrrh in his hand,
For he came on foot from a far-off land.
Now when they had travelled a-many days
Through tangled forests and desert ways,
By angry seas and by paths thorn-set
On Christmas Vigil the three kings met.
And over their meeting a shrouded sky
Made dark the star they had travelled by.
Then the first king spake and he frowned and said:
“By some ill spell have our feet been led,
“Now I see in the darkness the fools we are
To follow the light of a lying star.
“Let us fool no more, but like kings and men
Each get him home to his land again!”
Then the second king with the weary face,
Gold-tinct as the sun of his reigning place,
Lifted sad eyes to the clouds and said,
“It was but a dream and the dream is sped.
“We dreamed of a star that rose new and fair,
But it sets in the night of the old despair.
“Yet night is faithful though stars betray,
It will lead to our kingdoms far away.”
Then spake the king who had fared alone
From the far-off kingdom, the white-hung throne:
“O brothers, brothers, so very far
Ye have followed the light of the radiant star,
“And because for a while ye see it not
Shall its faithful shining be all forgot?
“On the spirit’s pathway the light still lies
Though the star be hid from our longing eyes.
“To-morrow our star will be bright once more
The little pin-hole in heaven’s floor —
“The Angels pricked it to let it bring
Our feet to the throne of the new-born King!”
And the first king heard and the second heard
And their hearts grew humble before the third.
And they laid them down beside bale and beast
and their sleeping eyes saw light in the East.
For the Angels fanned them with starry wings
And the waft of visions of unseen things.
And the next gold day waned trembling and white
And the star was born of the waxing night.
And the three kings came where the Great King lay,
A little baby among the hay,
The ox and the ass were standing near
And Mary Mother beside her Dear.
Then low in the litter the kings bowed down,
They gave Him gold for a kingly crown,
And frankincense for a great God’s breath
and Myrrh to sweeten the day of death.
The Maiden Mother she stood and smiled
And she took from the manger her little child.
On the dark king’s head she laid His hand
And anger died at that dear command.
She laid His hand on the gold king’s head
And despair itself was comforted.
But when the pale king knelt in the stall
She heard on the straw his tears down fall.
And she stooped where he knelt beside her feet
And laid on his bosom her baby sweet.
And the king in the holy stable-place
Felt the little lips through the tears on his face.
* * * * * * *
Christ! lay Thy hand on the angry king
Who reigns in my breast to my undoing,
And lay thy hands on the king who lays
The spell of sadness on all my days,
And give the white king my soul, Thy soul,
Of these other kings the high control.
That soul and spirit and sense may meet
In adoration before Thy feet!
Now Glory to God the Father Most High,
And the Star, the Spirit, He leads us by.
And to God’s dear Son, the Babe who was born
And laid in the manger on Christmas morn!
IX.
AFTER DEATH.
IF we must part, this parting is the best:
How would you bear to lay
Your head on some warm pillow far away —
Your head, so used to lying on my breast?
But now your pillow is cold;
Your hands have flowers, and not my hands, to hold;
Upon our bed the worn bride-linen lies.
I have put the death-money upon your eyes,
So that you should not wake up in the night.
I have bound your face with white;
I have washed you, yes, with water and not with tears, —
Those arms wherein I have slept so many years,
Those feet that hastened when they came to me,
And all your body that belonged to me.
I have smoothed your dear dull hair,
And there is nothing left to sa
y for you
And nothing left to fear or pray for you;
And I have got the rest of life to bear:
Thank God it is you, not I, who are lying there.
If I had died
And you had stood beside
This still white bed
Where the white, scented, horrible flowers are spread, —
I know the thing it is,
And I thank God that He has spared you this.
If one must bear it, thank God it was I
Who had to live and bear to see you die,
Who have to live, and bear to see you dead.
You will have nothing of it all to bear:
You will not even know that in your bed
You lie alone. You will not miss my head
Beside you on the pillow: you will rest
So soft in the grave you will not miss my breast.
But I — but I — Your pillow and your place —
And only the darkness laid against my face,
And only my anguish pressed against my side —
Thank God, thank God, that it was you who died!
CHLOE.
NIGHT wind sighing through the poplar leaves,
Trembling of the aspen, shivering of the willow,
Every leafy voice of all the night-time grieves,
Mourning, weeping over Chloe’s pillow.
Chloe, fresher than the breeze of dawn,
Fairer than the larches in their young spring glory,
Brighter than the glow-worms on the dewy lawn,
Hear the dirge the green trees sing to end your story: —
“Chloe lived and Chloe loved: she brought new gladness,
Hope and life and all things good to all who met her;
Only, dying, wept to know the lifelong sadness
Willed, against her will, to those who can’t forget her.”
INVOCATION.
COME to-night in a dream to-night,
Come as you used to do,
Come in the gown, in the gown of white,
Come in the ribbon of blue;
Come in the virgin’s colours you wear,
Come through the dark and the dew,
Come with the scent of the night in your hair,
Come as you used to do.
Blue and white of your eyes and your face,
White of your gown and blue,
Will you not come from the happy place,
Come as you used to do?
Tears so many, so many tears
Where there were once so few —
Can they not wash the gray of the years
From the white of your gown and blue?
THE LAST BETRAYAL.
AND I shall lie alone at last,