Love Guerdons
DEAREST, if I almost cease to weep for you,
Do not doubt I love you just the same;
'Tis because my life has grown to keep for you
All the hours that sorrow does not claim.
All the hours when I may steal away to you,
Where you lie alone through the long day,
Lean my face against your turf and say to you
All that there is no one else to say.
Do they let you listen--do you lean to me?
Know now what in life you never knew,
When I whisper all that you have been to me,
All that I might never be to you?
Dear, lie still. No tears but mine are shed for you,
No one else leaves kisses day by day,
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Egoists
TWO strangers, from opposing poles,
Meet in the torrid zone of Love:
And their desire seems set above
The limitation of their souls.
This is the trap; this is the snare,
This is the false, enchanting light,
And when it smoulders into night,
How can each know the other is there?
They own no bond of common speech;
Each, from far shores by wild winds brought,
Gropes for some cord of common thought
To draw the other within reach.
Each when the dark tide drowns their star,
Cries out, 'Thou art not one with me:
One flesh we seemed when eyes could see,
But now, how far thou art! How far!'
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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At Evening Time There Shall Be Light
THE day was wild with wind and rain,
One grey wrapped sky and sea and shore,
It seemed our marsh would never again
Wear the rich robes that once it wore.
The scattered farms looked sad and chill,
Their sheltering trees writhed all awry,
And waves of mist broke on the hill
Where once the great sea thundered by.
Then God remembered this His land,
This little land that is our own,
He caught the rain up in His hand,
He hid the winds behind His throne,
He soothed the fretful waves to rest,
He called the clouds to come away,
And, by blue pathways, to the west,
They went, like children tired of play.
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Monk
WHEN in my narrow cell I lie,
The long day's penance done at last,
I see the ghosts of days gone by,
And hear the voices of the past.
I see the blue-gray wood-smoke curled
From hearths where life has rhymed to love,
I see the kingdoms of the world--
The glory and the power thereof,
And cry, 'Ah, vainly have I striven!'
And then a voice calls, soft and low:
'Thou gavest My Earth to win My Heaven;
But Heaven-on-Earth thou mayest not know!'
It is not for Thy Heaven, O Lord,
That I renounced Thy pleasant earth--
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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Mummy Wheat
LAID close to Death, these many thousand years,
In this small seed Life hid herself and smiled;
So well she hid, Death was at least beguiled,
Set free the grain--and lo! the sevenfold ears!
Warmed by the sun, wooed by the wind's soft word,
Under blue canopy they hold their state:
For this, ah, was it not worth while to wait
Through all the centuries of hope deferred?
What could they know who laid the seed with Death
Of this Divine fruition fixed and planned?
Love--since Life parts us--lend my hand your hand
And look with me into the eyes of faith.
For here between your hand and mine there lies
A little seed we trust to Death to keep
Through unimagined centuries of sleep
Until the day when Life shall bid it rise.
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Heart Of Sadness
IT is not, Dear, because I am alone,
For I am lonelier when the rest are near,
But that my place against your heart has grown
Too dear to dream of when you are not here.
I weep because my thoughts no more may roam
To meet, half-way, your longing thoughts of me,
To turn with these and spread glad wings for home,
For the dear haven where I fain would be.
When first we loved, I loved to steal away
To show to solitude what love could do,
To fill the waste space of the night and day
With thousand-wingèd dreams that flew to you;
But now through many tears I am grown wise
To know how mighty and how dear love is;
I dare not turn to him my longing eyes,
Nor even in dreams lean out my face to his,
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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New Year Song
WE climb the hill; the mist conceals
That valley where we could not stay;
Surely this hill's crest, gained, reveals
The glory of the sunlit day.
The hill is climbed. Still shadow-land--
Still darkling looms another hill.
Oh, weary feet!--climb that to find
A new ascent, 'mid shadows still!
We dare not stop or think of rest,
This one hill may be all that lies
Between us and our souls' desire--
The splendour of the eastern skies.
Through long long lives we till and tend,
Sow, weed, and water, all in vain;
Without the flower we looked to find,
Each year springs blooms and dies again.
Bowed down with our unanswered prayers,
Our face averted from our past,
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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A Comedy
MADAM, you bade me act a part,
A comedy of your devising--
Forbade me to consult my heart,
To be sincere--or compromising.
The play was not my own device,
My stage-struck youth lies far behind me;
And yet--I thought it would be nice
To play the part that you assigned me.
Thus have I learned my rôle so well
That, as I play, you question whether
Fate has not taught your jest a spell
To bind me to you altogether.
The truth is this: so ill I wrought
In mastering the part you gave me,
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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Vies Manquees
A YEAR ago we walked the wood--
A year ago to-day;
A blackbird fluttered round her brood
Deep in the white-flowered may.
We trod the happy woodland ways,
Where sunset streamed between
The hazel stems in long dusk rays,
And turned to gold the green.
A thrush sang where the ferns uncurled,
And clouds of wind-flowers grew:
I missed the meaning of the world
From lack of love for you.
You missed the beauty of the year,
And failed its self to see,
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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On The Downs
THE little moon is dead,
Drowned in the flood of rain
That drips from roof of byre and shed,
And splashes in the lane:
The leafless lean-flanked lane where last year's leaves are spread.
The sheep cower in the fold,
Where the rain beats them blind,
Where scarce the rotten hurdles hold
Against the weary wind
That moans with angry tears across the pathless wold.
Dim lights across the down
Show where the lone farms lie,
The twisted trees have lost their brown,
Are black against the sky,
And far below blink lights, gay lights of Brighton town.
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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