by Edith Nesbit
And seeing a fireless hearth
And the garden deserted and weed-grown
That once was full of flowers for me,
I said, “What has changed? What is it
That has made all the clocks stop?”
Thus I asked and they answered:
“It is thy mother who is dead.”
And now I am alone.
My son, too, some day will stand
Here, where I stand and weep.
He too will weep, knowing too late
The love that wrapped round his life.
Dear God spare him this:
Let him never know how I loved him,
For he was always weak.
He could not endure as I can.
Mother, my dear, ask God
To grant me this, for my son!
THE NEST
That was the skylark we heard
Singing so high,
The little quivering bird
We saw, and the sky.
The earth was drenched with sun,
The sky was drenched with song;
We lay in the grass and listened,
Long and long and long.
I said, “What a spell it is
Has made her rise
To pour out her world of bliss
In that world of skies!”
You said, “What a spell must pass
Between sky and plain,
Since she finds in this world of grass
Her nest again!”
THE OLD MAGIC
Gray is the sea, and the skies are gray;
They are ghosts of our blue, bright yesterday;
And gray are the breasts of the gulls that scream
Like tortured souls in an evil dream.
There is white on the wings of the sea and sky,
And white are the gulls’ wings wheeling by,
And white, like snow, is the pall that lies
Where love weeps over his memories.
For the dead is dead, and its shroud is wrought
Of good unfound and of wrong unsought;
Yet from God’s good magic there ever springs
The resurrection of holy things.
See — the gold and blue of our yesterday
In the eyes and the hair of a child at play;
And the spell of joy that our youth beguiled
Is woven anew in the laugh of the child.
FAITH
A wall
Gray and tall,
And a sky of gray,
And a twilight cold;
And that is all
That my eyes behold.
But I know that unseen,
Beyond the wall,
On a lawn of green
White blossoms fall
In the waning light;
And beyond the lawn
Curtains are drawn
From windows bright.
And within she moves with her gracious hands
And the heart that loves and that understands,
Waiting to succour poor souls in need,
And to bind with her blessing the hearts that bleed.
I know it all, though I cannot see;
But the tired-out tramp,
Dirty and ill,
In the evening’s damp,
In the Spring’s clean chill,
Knows not that there
Is the heart to care
For such as I and for such as he.
He slouches along, and sees alone
The gray of the sky and the gray of the stone.
Lord, when my eyes see nothing but grey
In all Thy world that is now so green,
I will bethink me of this spring day
And the house of welcome, known yet unseen;
The wall that conceals
And the faith that reveals.
THE DEATH OF AGNES
Now that the sunlight dies in my eyes,
And the moonlight grows in my hair,
I who was never very wise,
Never was very fair,
Virgin and martyr all my life,
What has life left to give
Me — who was never mother nor wife,
Never got leave to live?
Nothing of life could I clasp or claim,
Nothing could steal or save.
So when you come to carve my name,
Give me life in my grave.
To keep me warm when I sleep alone
A lie is little to give;
Call me “Magdalen” on my stone,
Though I died and did not live.
IN TROUBLE
It’s all for nothing: I’ve lost him now.
I suppose it had to be;
But oh, I never thought it of him,
Nor he never thought it of me.
And all for a kiss on your evening out,
And a field where the grass was down . . .
And he ‘as gone to God-knows-where,
And I may go on the town.
The worst of all was the thing he said
The night that he went away;
He said he’d ‘a married me right enough
If I hadn’t ‘a been so gay.
Me — gay! When I’d cried, and I’d asked him not,
But he said he loved me so;
An’ whatever he wanted seemed right to me . . .
An’ how was a girl to know?
Well, the river is deep, and drowned folk sleep sound,
An’ it might be the best to do;
But when he made me a light-o’-love
He made me a mother too.
I’ve had enough sin to last my time,
If ’twas sin as I got it by,
But it ain’t no sin to stand by his kid
And work for it till I die.
But oh! the long days and the death-long nights
When I feel it move and turn,
And cry alone in my single bed
And count what a girl can earn
To buy the baby the bits of things
He ought to ha’ bought, by rights;
And wonder whether he thinks of Us . . .
And if he sleeps sound o’ nights.
GRATITUDE
I found a starving cat in the street:
It cried for food and a place by the fire.
I carried it home, and I strove to meet
The claims of its desire.
And since its desire was a little fish,
A little hay and a little milk,
I gave it cream in a silver dish
And a basket lined with silk.
And when we came to the grateful pause
When it should have fawned on the hand that fed,
It turned to a devil all teeth and claws,
Scratched me and bit me and fled.
To pay for the fish and the milk and the hay
With a purr had been an easy task:
But its hate and my blood were required to pay
For the gifts that it did not ask.
AT THE LAST
Where are you — you whose loving breath
Alone can stay my soul from death?
The world’s so wide, I seek it through,
Yet — dare I dream to win to you?
Perhaps your dear desirèd feet
Pass me in this grey muddy street.
Your face, it may be, has its shrine
In that dull house that’s next to mine.
But I believe, O Life, O Fate,
That when I call on Death and wait
One moment at the unclosing gate
I shall turn back for one last gaze
Along the trampled, sordid ways,
And in the sunset see at last,
Just as the barred gate holds me fast,
Your face, your face, too late.
FEAR
If you were here,
Hopes, dreams, ambitions, faith would disappear,
Drowned in your e
yes; and I should touch your hand,
Forgetting all that now I understand.
For you confuse my life with memories
Of unrememberable ecstasies
Which were, and are not, and can never be; . . .
Ah! keep the whole earth between you and me.
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT
When the bearing and doing are over,
And no more is to do or bear,
God will see us and judge us
The kind of men we were;
And our sins, so ugly and heavy,
We shall drag them into His sight,
And throw them down at the foot of the throne,
Foul on the steps of light.
We shall not be shamed or frightened,
Though the angels are all at hand,
For He will look at our burden,
And He will understand.
He will turn to the little angels,
Agog to hear and obey,
And point to the festering sin-loads
With, “Take that rubbish away!”
Then the steps will be cleared of the burdens
That we threw down at His feet;
And we shall be washed in the tears of Christ,
And our tears bathe His feet.
And the harvest of all our sinning
That moment’s shame will reap —
When we look in the eyes that love us
And know we have made them weep.
A FAREWELL
Good-bye, good-bye; it is not hard to part!
You have my heart — the heart that leaps to hear
Your name called by an echo in a dream;
You have my soul that, like an untroubled stream,
Reflects your soul that leans so dear, so near —
Your heartbeats set the rhythm for my heart.
What more could Life give if we gave her leave
To give, and Life should give us leave to take?
Only each other’s arms, each other’s eyes,
Each other’s lips, the clinging secrecies
That are but as the written words to make
Records of what the heart and soul achieve.
This, only this we yield, my love, my friend,
To Fate’s implacable eyes and withering breath.
We still are yours and mine, though, by Time’s theft,
My arms are empty and your arms bereft.
It is not hard to part — not harder than Death;
And each of us must face Death in the end!
IN HOSPITAL
Under the shadow of a hawthorn brake,
Where bluebells draw the sky down to the wood,
Where, ‘mid brown leaves, the primroses awake
And hidden violets smell of solitude;
Beneath green leaves bright-fluttered by the wing
Of fleeting, beautiful, immortal Spring,
I should have said, “I love you,” and your eyes
Have said, “I, too . . . “ The gods saw otherwise.
For this is winter, and the London streets
Are full of soldiers from that far, fierce fray
Where life knows death, and where poor glory meets
Full-face with shame, and weeps and turns away.
And in the broken, trampled foreign wood
Is horror, and the terrible scent of blood,
And love shines tremulous, like a drowning star,
Under the shadow of the wings of war.
1916.
PRAYER IN TIME OF WAR
Now Death is near, and very near,
In this wild whirl of horror and fear,
When round the vessel of our State
Roll the great mountain waves of hate.
God! We have but one prayer to-day —
O Father, teach us how to pray.
For prayer is strong, and very strong;
But we have turned from Thee so long
To follow gods that have no power
Save in the safe and sordid hour,
That to Thy feet we have lost the way . . .
O Father, teach us how to pray.
We have done ill, and very ill,
Set up our will against Thy will.
That our soft lives might gorge, full-fed,
We stole our brothers’ daily bread.
Lord, we are sorry we went astray —
O Father, teach us how to pray.
Now in this hour of desperate strife
For England’s life, her very life,
Teach us to pray that life may be
A new life, beautiful to Thee,
And in Thy hands that life to lay.
O Father, teach us how to pray.
1915.
AT PARTING
Go, since you must, but, Dearest, know
That, Honour having bid you go,
Your honour, if your life be spent,
Shall have a costly monument.
This heart, that fire and roses is
Beneath the magic of your kiss,
Shall turn to marble if you die
And be your deathless effigy.
1914.
INVOCATION
The Spirit of Darkness, the Prince of the Power of the Air,
The terror that walketh by night, and the horror by day,
The legions of Evil, alert and awake and aware,
Press round him each hour; and I pray here alone, far away.
God! call up Thy legions to fight on the side of my love,
Let the seats of the mighty be cast down before him, O Lord,
Send strong wings of angels to shield him beneath and above,
Let glorious Michael unsheath his implacable sword.
Let the whole host of Heaven take part with my dear in his fight,
That the armies of Hell may be scattered like chaff in the blast,
And the trumpets of Heaven blow fair for the triumph of Right.
Inspire him, protect him, and bring him home victor at last.
But if — ah, dear God, give me strength to withhold nothing now! —
If the life of my life be required for Thy splendid design,
Give his country the laurels, though cold and uncrowned be his brow . . .
Thou gavest Thy Son for the world, and shall I not give mine?
1914.
TO HER: IN TIME OF WAR
Once I made for you songs,
Rondels, triolets, sonnets;
Verse that my love deemed due,
Verse that your love found fair.
Now the wide wings of war
Hang, like a hawk’s, over England,
Shadowing meadows and groves;
And the birds and the lovers are mute.
Yet there’s a thing to say
Before I go into battle,
Not now a poet’s word
But a man’s word to his mate:
Dear, if I come back never,
Be it your pride that we gave
The hope of our hearts, each other,
For the sake of the Hope of the World.
1915.
THE FIELDS OF FLANDERS
Last year the fields were all glad and gay
With silver daisies and silver may;
There were kingcups gold by the river’s edge
And primrose stars under every hedge.
This year the fields are trampled and brown,
The hedges are broken and beaten down,
And where the primroses used to grow
Are little black crosses set in a row.
And the flower of hopes, and the flowers of dreams,
The noble, fruitful, beautiful schemes,
The tree of life with its fruit and bud,
Are trampled down in the mud and the blood.
The changing seasons will bring again
The magic of Spring to our wood and plain:
Though the Spring be so green as never was seen
The crosses will st
ill be black in the green.
The God of battles shall judge the foe
Who trampled our country and laid her low . . .
God! hold our hands on the reckoning day,
Lest all we owe them we should repay.
1915.
SPRING IN WAR-TIME
Now the sprinkled blackthorn snow
Lies along the lovers’ lane
Where last year we used to go —
Where we shall not go again.
In the hedge the buds are new,
By our wood the violets peer —
Just like last year’s violets, too,
But they have no scent this year.
Every bird has heart to sing
Of its nest, warmed by its breast;
We had heart to sing last spring,
But we never built our nest.
Presently red roses blown
Will make all the garden gay . . .
Not yet have the daisies grown
On your clay.
1916.
THE MOTHER’S PRAYER
This was my little son
Who leapt and laughed on my knee:
Body we made with love,
Soul made with love by Thee.
This was the mystery
In which I worshipped Thy grace;
This was the sign to me —
The unveiling of Thy face . . .
This, that lies under Thy skies
Naked as on that day
When the floor of heaven gave way
And the glory of God shone through,
When the world was made new
And Thy word was made flesh for me . . .
He lies there, bare to Thy skies,
O Lord God, see!
Body that was in mine
A secret, sacred spell,
Little hands I have kissed
Trampled by beasts in Hell . . .
Growing beauty and grace . . .
Oh, head that lay on my bosom . . .
Broken, battered, shattered . . .
Body that grew like a blossom!
All that was promised me
On my life’s royal day.
Every promise broken —
Only a ghost, and clay!
O God, I kneel at Thy feet;
I lay my hands in Thine:
Thou gavest Thy Son for the world,
And shall I not give mine?
Only — O God, have pity!
All my defences are down:
God, I accept the Cross,
Let him have the Crown!
By all that my love has borne,
By all that all mothers bear,