by Edith Nesbit
When my love was gone.
I was wise, I never gave
What they teach a girl to save,
But I wished myself his slave
When my love was gone.
I was all alone at night
When my love came home.
Oh, what thought of wrong or right
When my love came home?
I flung the door back wide
And I pulled my love inside;
There was no more shame or pride
When my love came home.
VALUES
Did you deceive me? Did I trust
A heart of fire to a heart of dust?
What matter? Since once the world was fair,
And you gave me the rose of the world to wear.
That was the time to live for! Flowers,
Sunshine and starshine and magic hours,
Summer about me, Heaven above,
And all seemed immortal, even Love.
Well, the mortal rose of your love was worth
The pains of death and the pains of birth;
And the thorns may be sharper than death — who knows? —
That crowd round the stem of a deathless rose.
IN THE PEOPLE’S PARK
Many’s the time I’ve found your face
Fresh as a bunch of flowers in May,
Waiting for me at our own old place
At the end of the working day.
Many’s the time I’ve held your hand
On the shady seat in the People’s Park,
And blessed the blaring row of the band
And kissed you there in the dark.
Many’s the time you promised true,
Swore it with kisses, swore it with tears:
“I’ll marry no one without it’s you —
If we have to wait for years.”
And now it’s another chap in the Park
That holds your hand like I used to do;
And I kiss another girl in the dark,
And try to fancy it’s you!
WEDDING DAY
The enchanted hour,
The magic bower,
Where, crowned with roses,
Love love discloses.
“Kiss me, my lover;
Doubting is over,
Over is waiting;
Love lights our mating!”
“But roses wither,
Chill winds blow hither,
One thing all say, dear,
Love lives a day, dear!”
“Heed those old stories?
New glowing glories
Blot out those lies, love!
Look in my eyes, love!
“Ah, but the world knows —
Naught of the true rose;
Back the world slips, love!
Give me your lips, love!
“Even were their lies true,
Yet were you wise to
Swear, at Love’s portal,
The god’s immortal.”
THE LAST DEFEAT
Across the field of day
In sudden blazon lay
The pallid bar of gold
Borne on the shield of day.
Night had endured so long,
And now the Day grew strong
With lance of light to hold
The Night at bay.
So on my life’s dull night
The splendour of your light
Traversed the dusky shield
And shone forth golden bright.
Your colours I have worn
Through all the fight forlorn,
And these, with life, I yield,
To-night, to Night.
MAY DAY
“Will you go a-maying, a-maying, a-maying,
Come and be my Queen of May and pluck the may with me?
The fields are full of daisy buds and new lambs playing,
The bird is on the nest, dear, the blossom’s on the tree.”
“If I go with you, if I go a-maying,
To be your Queen and wear my crown this May-day bright,
Hand in hand straying, it must be only playing,
And playtime ends at sunset, and then good-night.
“For I have heard of maidens who laughed and went a-maying,
Went out queens and lost their crowns and came back slaves.
I will be no young man’s slave, submitting and obeying,
Bearing chains as those did, even to their graves.”
“If you come a-maying, a-straying, a-playing,
We will pluck the little flowers, enough for you and me;
And when the day dies, end our one day’s playing,
Give a kiss and take a kiss and go home free.”
GRETNA GREEN
Last night when I kissed you,
My soul caught alight;
And oh! how I missed you
The rest of the night —
Till Love in derision
Smote sleep with his wings,
And gave me in vision
Impossible things.
A night that was clouded,
Long windows asleep;
Dark avenues crowded
With secrets to keep.
A terrace, a lover,
A foot on the stair;
The waiting was over,
The lady was there.
What a flight, what a night!
The hoofs splashed and pounded.
Dark fainted in light
And the first bird-notes sounded.
You slept on my shoulder,
Shy night hid your face;
But dawn, bolder, colder,
Beheld our embrace.
Your lips of vermilion,
Your ravishing shape,
The flogging postillion,
The village agape,
The rattle and thunder
Of postchaise a-speed . . .
My woman, my wonder,
My ultimate need!
We two matched for mating
Came, handclasped, at last,
Where the blacksmith was waiting
To fetter us fast . . .
At the touch of the fetter
The dream snapped and fell —
And I woke to your letter
That bade me farewell.
THE ETERNAL
Your dear desired grace,
Your hands, your lips of red,
The wonder of your perfect face
Will fade, like sweet rose-petals shed,
When you are dead.
Your beautiful hair
Dust in the dust will lie —
But not the light I worship there,
The gold the sunshine crowns you by —
This will not die.
Your beautiful eyes
Will be closed up with clay;
But all the magic they comprise,
The hopes, the dreams, the ecstasies
Pass not away.
All I desire and see
Will be a carrion thing;
But all that you have been to me
Is, and can never cease to be.
O Grave! where is thy victory?
Where, Death, thy sting?
THE POINT OF VIEW: I.
I
There was never winter, summer only: roses,
Pink and white and red,
Shining down the warm rich garden closes;
Quiet trees and lawns of dappled shadow,
Silver lilies, whisper of mignonette,
Cloth-of-gold of buttercups outspread;
Good gold sun that kissed me when we met,
Shadows of floating clouds on sunny meadow.
In the hay-field, scented, grey,
Loving life and love, I lay;
By fresh airs blown, drifted into sleep;
Slept and dreamed there. Winter was the dream.
II
Summer never was, was always winter only;
Cold and ice and frost
&nbs
p; Only, driven by the ice-wind, lonely,
In a world of strangers, in the welter
Of the puddles and the spiteful wind and sleet,
Blinded by the spitting hailstones, lost
In a bitter unfamiliar street,
I found a doorway, crouched there for just shelter,
Crouched and fought in vain for breath,
Cursed the cold and wished for death;
Crouched there, gathered somehow warmth to sleep;
Slept and dreamed there. Summer was the dream.
THE POINT OF VIEW: II.
I
In the wood of lost causes, the valley of tears,
Old hopes, like dead leaves, choke the difficult way;
Dark pinions fold dank round the soul, and it hears:
“It is night, it is night, it has never been day;
Thou hast dreamed of the day, of the rose of delight;
It was always dead leaves and the heart of the night.
Drink deep then, and rest, O thou foolish wayfarer,
For night, like a chalice, holds sleep in her hands.”
II
Then you drain the dark cup, and, half-drugged as you lie
In the arms of despair that is masked as delight,
You thrill to the rush of white wings, and you hear:
“It is day, it is day, it has never been night!
Thou hast dreamed of the night and the wood of lost leaves;
It was always noon, June, and red roses in sheaves,
Unlock the blind lids, and behold the light-bearer
Who holds, like a monstrance, the sun in his hands.”
MARY OF MAGDALA
Mary of Magdala came to bed;
There were no soft curtains round her head;
She had no mother to hold of worth
The little baby she brought to birth.
Mary of Magdala groaned and prayed:
“O God, I am very much afraid;
For out of my body, by sin defiled,
Thou biddest me make a little child.
“O God, I have turned my face from Thee
To that which the angels may not see;
How can I make, from my deep disgrace,
A child whose angel shall see Thy face?
“O God, I have sinned, and I know well
That the pains I bear are the pains of hell;
But the thought of the child that sin has given
Is like the thought of the airs of Heaven.”
Mary of Magdala held her breath
In the clutch of pain like the pains of Death,
And through her heart, like the mortal knife,
Went the pang of joy and the pang of life.
“We two are two alone,” said she,
“And we are two who should be three;
Now who will clothe my baby fair
In the little garments that babies wear?”
There came two angels with quiet wings
And hands that were full of baby things;
And the new-born child was bathed and dressed
And laid again on his mother’s breast.
“Now who will sign on his brow the mark
To keep him safe from the Powers of the Dark?
Who will my baby’s sponsor be?”
“I, the Lord God, who died for thee.”
“Now who will comfort him if he cry;
And who will suckle him by and bye?
For my hands are cold and my breasts are dry,
And I think that my time has come to die.”
“I will dandle thy son as a mother may;
And his lips shall lie where my own Son’s lay.
Come, dear little one, come to me;
The Mother of God shall suckle thee.”
Mary of Magdala laughed and sighed;
“I never deserved a child,” she cried.
“Dear God, I am ready to go to hell,
Since with my little one all is well.”
Then the Son of Mary did o’er her lean.
“Poor mother, thy tears have washed thee clean.
Thy last poor pains, they will soon be done,
And My Mother shall give thee back thy son.”
Frozen grass for a bearing bed,
A halo of frost round a woman’s head,
And pious folks who looked and said:
“A drab and her brat that are better dead.”
THE HOME-COMING
This was our house. To this we came
Lighted by love with torch aflame,
And in this chamber, door locked fast,
I held you to my heart at last.
This was our house. In this we knew
The worst that Time and Fate can do.
You left the room bare, wide the door;
You did not love me any more.
Where once the kind warm curtain hung
The spider’s ghostly cloth is flung;
The beetle and the woodlouse creep
Where once I loved your lovely sleep.
Yet so the vanished spell endures,
That this, our house, still, still is yours.
Here, spite of all these years apart,
I still can hold you to my heart!
AGE TO YOUTH
Sunrise is in your eyes, and in your heart
The hope and bright desire of morn and May.
My eyes are full of shadow, and my part
Of life is yesterday.
Yet lend my hand your hand, and let us sit
And see your life unfolding like a scroll,
Rich with illuminated blazon, fit
For your arm-bearing soul.
My soul bears arms too, but the scroll’s rolled tight,
Yet the one strip of faded brightness shown
Proclaims that when ’twas splendid in the light
Its blazon matched your own.
IN AGE
The wine of life was rough and new,
But sweet beyond belief,
And wrong was false, and right was true —
The rose was in the leaf.
In that good sunlight well we knew
The hues of wrong and right;
We slept among the roses through
The long enchanted night.
Now to our eyes, made dim with years,
Right intertwines with wrong.
How can we hear, with these tired ears,
The old, the magic song?
But this we know — wine once was red,
Roses were red and dear;
Once in our ears the truths were said
That now the young men hear!
WHITE MAGIC
This is the room to which she came,
And Spring itself came with her;
She stirred the fire of life to flame,
She called all music hither.
Her glance upon the lean white walls
Hung them with cloth of splendour,
And still the rose she dropped recalls
The graces that attend her.
The same poor room, so dull and bare
Before, in consecration,
She breathed upon its common air
The true transfiguration . . .?
This room the same to which she came
For one immortal minute? —
How can it ever be the same
Since she has once been in it!
FROM THE PORTUGUESE
I
When I lived in the village of youth
There were lilies in all the orchards,
Flowers in the orange-gardens
For brides to wear in their hair.
It was always sunshine and summer,
Roses at every lattice,
Dreams in the eyes of maidens,
Love in the eyes of men.
When I lived in the village of youth
The doors, all the doors, stood open;
We went in and out of them laughing,
&n
bsp; Laughing and calling each other
To shew each other our fairings,
The new shawl, the new comb, the new fan,
The new rose, the new lover.
Now I live in the town of age
Where are no orchards, no gardens.
Here, too, all the doors stand open,
But no one goes in or goes out.
We sit alone by the hearthstone
Where memories lie like ashes
Upon a hearth that is cold;
And they from the village of youth
Run by our doorsteps laughing,
Calling, to shew each other
The new shawl, the new comb, the new fan,
The new rose, the new lover.
Once we had all these things —
We kept them from the old people,
And now the young people have them
And will not shew them to us —
To us who are old and have nothing
But the white, still, heaped-up ashes
On the hearth where the fire went out
A very long time ago.
II
I had a mistress; I loved her.
She left me with memories bitter,
Corroding, eating my heart
As the acid eats into the steel
Etching the portrait triumphant.
Intolerable, indelible,
Never to be effaced.
A wife was mine to my heart,
Beautiful flower of my garden,
Lily I worshipped by day,
Scented rose of my nights.
Now the night wind sighing
Blows white rose petals only
Over the bed where she sleeps
Dreamless alone.
I had a son; I loved him.
Mother of God, bear witness
How all my manhood loved him
As thy womanhood loved thy Son!
When he was grown to his manhood
He crucified my heart,
And even as it hung bleeding
He laughed with his bold companions,
Mocked and turned away
With laughter into the night.
Those three I loved and lost;
But there was one who loved me
With all the fire of her heart.
Mine was the sacred altar
Where she burnt her life for my worship.
She was my slave, my servant;
Mine all she had, all she was,
All she could suffer, could be.
That was the love of my life,
I did not say, “She loves me”;
I was so used to her love
I never asked its name,
Till, feeling the wind blow cold
Where all the doors were left open,