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!

poem by Edith Nesbit
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Evening Prayer

NOT to the terrible God, avenging, bright,
Whose altars struck their roots in flame and blood,
Not to the jealous God, whose merciless might
The infamy of unclean years withstood;
But to the God who lit the evening star,
Who taught the flower to blossom in delight,
Who taught His world what love and worship are
We pray, we two, to-night.

To no vast Presence too immense to love,
To no enthronèd King too great to care,
To no strange Spirit human needs above
We bring our little, intimate, heart-warm prayer;
But to the God who is a Father too,
The Father who loved and gave His only Son
We pray across the cradle, I and you,
For ours, our little one!

poem by Edith Nesbit
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True Love And New love

OVER the meadow and down the lane
To the gate by the twisted thorn:
Your feet should know each turn of the way
You trod so many many a day,
Before the old love was put out of its pain,
Before the new love was born.

Kiss her, hold her and fold her close,
Tell her the old true tale:
You ought to know each turn of the phrase,--
You learned them all in the poor old days
Before the birth of the new red rose,
Before the old rose grew pale.

And do not fear I shall creep to-night
To make a third at your tryst:
My ghost, if it walked, would only wait
To scare the others away from the gate
Where you teach your new love the old delight,
With the lips that your old love kissed.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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Through The Wood

THROUGH the wood, the green wood, the wet wood, the light wood,
Love and I went maying a thousand lives ago;
Shafts of golden sunlight had made a golden bright wood
In my heart reflected, because I loved you so.

Through the wood, the chill wood, the brown wood, the bare wood,
I alone went lonely no later than last year,
What had thinned the branches, and wrecked my dear and fair wood,
Killed the pale wild roses and left the rose-thorns sere?

Through the wood, the dead wood, the sad wood, the lone wood,
Winds of winter shiver through lichens old and grey,
You ride past forgetting the wood that was our own wood
All our own--and withered as ever a flower of May.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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Town And Country

THE Sun tells to Trafalgar Square
His old and radiant story,
And touches in the young spring air
The pepper-pots to glory.

Spring's robe down Piccadilly floats,
The parks glow with her treasure,
And button-holes of morning coats
Rhyme with her royal pleasure.

Now persons beautifully dressed
In Bond-street shop and saunter,
And town--by Spring's soft breath caressed--
Would as its mistress vaunt her.

But far away from square and street,
Where willows shine and shiver,

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poem by Edith Nesbit
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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.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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February

THE trees stand brown against the gray,
The shivering gray of field and sky;
The mists wrapt round the dying day
The shroud poor days wear as they die:
Poor day, die soon, who lived in vain,
Who could not bring my Love again!

Down in the garden breezes cold
Dead rustling stalks blow chill between;
Only, above the sodden mould,
The wallflower wears his heartless green
As though still reigned the rose-crowned year
And summer and my Love were here.

The mists creep close about the house,
The empty house, all still and chill;
The desolate and trembling boughs
Scratch at the dripping window sill:

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poem by Edith Nesbit
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To One Who Pleaded For Candour In Love

HERE is the dim enchanted wood
Your face, a mystery divine,
But half revealed, half understood,
Appears the counterpart of mine.

Beyond the wood the daylight lies;
Cruel and hard, it lies in wait
To steal the magic from your eyes
And from your lips the thrill of fate.

Ah, stay with me a little while
Here, where the magic shadows rest,
Where all my world is in your smile
And all my heaven on your breast.

Ah no!--cling close, what need to move,
What need to advance or explore?
We came here blindly, led by love,
Who will not lead us any more.

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poem by Edith Nesbit
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Out Of Hope

IF through the rain and wind along the street,
Where the wet stone reflects the flickering gas,
Some weeping autumn night your wandering feet,
Lost in a lonely world, should chance to pass;
If, passing many doors that welcomed you
When robes of good renown your dear name wore,
Your feet again, as once they used to do,
Paused at my door,--

Should I shut fast my heart for the old ill,
The old wrong done, the sorrow and the sin?
Or--only knowing that I love you still--
Should I throw wide the door and let you in?
Come--with your sins--my tears shall wash them all,
The heart you broke still waits to be your home.
Yet if you came. . . . Oh! lost beyond recall
You never more will come.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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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.

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poem by Edith Nesbit
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