A Tragedy
Among his books he sits all day
To think and read and write;
He does not smell the new-mown hay,
The roses red and white.
I walk among them all alone,
His silly, stupid wife;
The world seems tasteless, dead and done -
An empty thing is life.
At night his window casts a square
Of light upon the lawn;
I sometimes walk and watch it there
Until the chill of dawn.
I have no brain to understand
The books he loves to read;
I only have a heart and hand
He does not seem to need.
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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Maidenhood
THROUGH her fair world of blossoms fresh and bright,
Veiled with her maiden innocence, she goes;
Not all the splendour of the waxing light
She sees, nor all the colour of the rose;
And yet who knows what finer hues she sees,
Hid by our wisdom from our longing eyes?
Who knows what light she sees in skies and seas
Which is withholden from our seas and skies?
Shod with her youth the thorny paths she treads
And feels not yet the treachery of the thorn,
Her crown of lilies still its perfume sheds
Where Love, the thorny crown, not yet is borne.
Yet in the mystery of her peaceful way
Who knows what fears beset her innocence,
Who, trembling, learns that thorns will wound some day,
And wonders what thorns are, and why, and whence?
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Rejected
WE wandered down the meadow way--
The path beside the hedge is shady,--
You did not see the silver may,
You talked of Art, my sweet blind Lady.
You talked of values and of tone,
Of square touch and New English crazes;
Could you not see we were alone,
Where God's hand paints the world with daisies?
You spoke of Paris and of Rome
And in the hedgerow's thorny shadows
A white-throat sang a song of home,
Of English lanes and English meadows.
You talked about the aims of Art
And how all Art must needs be moral;
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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In Sanctuary
THE young Spring air was strong like wine,
The sky reflected in your eyes
Was of a blue as deep-divine
As ever glowed in southern skies.
We passed from out the sunny lane
Into the green wood's shadowing;
And, sudden, all Love's words seemed vain
In that calm temple of the Spring.
Our god hears fair and tuneful words,
And splendid flowers his altars bear;
With choric song of leaves and birds,
Another god was worshipped there.
Silent, we passed the woodland, through
The coloured maze that Springtime weaves--
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Kiss
The snow is white on wood and wold,
The wind is in the firs,
So dead my heart is with the cold,
No pulse within it stirs,
Even to see your face, my dear,
Your face that was my sun;
There is no spring this bitter year,
And summer's dreams are done.
The snakes that lie about my heart
Are in their wintry sleep;
Their fangs no more deal sting and smart,
No more they curl and creep.
Love with the summer ceased to be;
The frost is firm and fast.
God keep the summer far from me,
And let the snakes' sleep last!
Touch of your hand could not suffice
To waken them once more;
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Goose-Girl
I WANDERED lonely by the sea,
As is my daily use,
I saw her drive across the lea
The gander and the goose.
The gander and the gray, gray goose,
She drove them all together;
Her cheeks were rose, her gold hair loose,
All in the wild gray weather.
'O dainty maid who drive the geese
Across the common wide,
Turn, turn your pretty back on these
And come and be my bride.
I am a poet from the town,
And, 'mid the ladies there,
There is not one would wear a crown
With half your charming air!'
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Way Of The Wood
WHERE baby oaks play in the breeze
Among wood-sorrel and fringed fern,
Through the green garments of the trees
The quivering shafts of sunlight burn,
And all along the wet green ride
The dripping hazel-boughs between,
The spotted orchis, stiff with pride,
Stands guard before the eglantine.
Sweet chestnuts droop their long, sharp leaves
By knotted tree roots, mossed and brown,
Round which the honeysuckle weaves
Its scented golden wild-wood crown.
O wood, last year you saw us meet,
For her your leaves and buds were gay,
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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A Garden Of Girls
KATE is like a violet, Gertrude's like a rose,
Jane is like a gillyflower smart;
But Laura's like a lily, the purest bud that blows,
Whose white, white petals veil the golden heart.
Girls in the garden--one and two and three--
One for song and one for play and one--ah, one for me!
Gillyflowers and violets and roses fair and fine,
But only one a lily, and that one lily mine!
Bertha is a hollyhock, stately, tall, and fair,
Mabel has the daisy's dainty grace,
Edith has the gold of the sunflower on her hair,
But Laura wears the lily in her face.
Girls in the garden--five and six and seven--
Three to take, and three to give, but one--ah! one is given--
Hollyhocks and daisies, and sunflowers like the sun,
But only one a lily, and that one lily won.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Special Pleading
THE world's a path all fresh and sweet,
A sky all fresh and fair,
With daisies underneath your feet
And roses for your hair;
Red roses for your pretty hair,
Green trees to shade your way,
And lavish blossoms everywhere,
Because the time is May.
How gold the sun shines through the green!
How soft the turf is spread!
How richly falls the shimmering sheen
About your darling head!
How in the dawn of Paradise
Should you foresee the night?
How, with the sunlight in your eyes,
See aught beyond the light?
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Moors
NOT in rich glebe and ripe green garden only
Does Summer weave her sweet resistless spells,
But in high hills, and moorlands waste and lonely,
The vast enchantment of her presence dwells.
Wide sky, and sky-wide waste of thyme and heather,
Perpetual sleepy hum of golden bees--
If you and I were only there together,
Free from the weight of all your garden's trees!
The north is mine; though bred by elm and meadow,
Pines, torrents, rocks, and moors my heart loves best;
I love the plover's wail, the cleft hill's shadow,
The sun-browned grass that is the skylark's nest.
Ah, yes! you too I love, dear wistful pleader,
You most I love, dear southern rose, half-blown,
And rather lounge with you beneath your cedar,
Than greet the moor's wide heaven-on-earth alone.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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