Entreaty
O LOVE, let us part now!
Ours is the tremulous, low-spoken vow,
Ours is the spell of meeting hands and eyes.
The first, involuntary, sacred kiss
Still on our lips in benediction lies.
O Love, be wise!
Love at its best is worth no more than this--
Let us part now!
O Love, let us part now!
Ere yet the roses wither on my brow,
Ere yet the lilies wither in your breast,
Ere the implacable hour shall flower to bear
The seeds of deathless anguish and unrest.
To part is best.
Between us still the drawn sword flameth fair--
Let us part now!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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From The Italian
AS a little child whom his mother has chidden,
Wrecked in the dark in a storm of weeping,
Sleeps with his tear-stained eyes closed hidden
And, with fists clenched, sobs still in his sleeping,
So in my breast sleeps Love, O white lady,
What does he care though the rest are playing,
With rattles and drums in the woodlands shady,
Happy children, whom Joy takes maying!
Ah, do not wake him, lest you should hear him
Scolding the others, breaking their rattles,
Smashing their drums, when their play comes near him--
Love who, for me, is a god of battles!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Song Of The Rose
THE lilac-time is over,
Laburnum's day is past,
The red may-blossoms cover
The white ones, fallen too fast.
And guelder-roses hang like snow,
Where purple flag-flowers grow.
And still the tulip lingers,
The wall-flower's red like blood
The ivy spreads pale fingers,
The rose is in the bud.
Good-bye, sweet lilac, and sweet may!
The Rose is on the way.
You were but heralds sent us--
All April's buds, and May's--
But painted missals lent us
That we might learn her praise,
[...] Read more
poem by Edith Nesbit
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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!
[...] Read more
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Choice
PLAGUE take the dull and dusty town,
Its paved and sordid mazes,
Now Spring has trimmed her pretty gown
With buttercups and daisies!
With half my heart I long to lie
Among the flowered grasses,
And hear the loving leaves that sigh
As their sweet Mistress passes.
Through picture-shows I make my way
While flower-crowned maids go maying,
And all the cultured things I say
That cultured folk are saying.
For I renounce Spring's darling face,
With may-bloom fresh upon it:
[...] Read more
poem by Edith Nesbit
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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 desired 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.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Song II
A MONTH of green and tender May,
All woods and walks awake with flowers,
Wide sunlit meadows for the day,
And moon-bathed paths for evening hours;
A bright brief dream that had no past,
And of the future knew no fear;
A kiss at first, a sigh at last--
Only last year.
Another spring, dim soulless woods;
No farewell kiss, no parting tear;
No stone to mark where silence broods
O'er the dead love we found so dear.
But, oh, to me the green seems grey,
The budding branches all are sere,
For sweet love's sake, that died one day,
Only last year.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Quieta Ne Movete
DEAR, if I told you, made your sorrow certain,
Showed you the ghosts that o'er my pillow lean,
What joy were mine--to cast aside the curtain
And clasp you close with no base lies between!
You have given all, and still would find to give me
More love, more tenderness than ever yet:
You would forgive me--ah, you would forgive me,
But all your life you never would forget.
And I, thank God, can still in your embraces
Forget the past, with all its strife and stain,
--But if you, too, beheld the evil faces,
I should forget them never, never again!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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This Desirable Mansion
THE long white windows blankly stare
Across the sodden, tangled grass,
Weed-covered are the pathways where
No footsteps ever pass;
No whispers wake, no kisses die,
No laughter thrills the dwindling flowers,
Only the night hears sigh on sigh
From ghosts of long-dead hours.
None come here now to laugh or weep;
The spider spins on stair and hall,
And round the windows shadows creep,
And loathly creatures crawl.
Cold is the hearth; the door is fast;
No guest the silent threshold sees
Save ghosts out of the happy past,--
And one who is as these.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Lover's Quarrels
JOIN hands, my dear, clasp long and close and fast,
Even this present we shall soon call past,
And lay among the unforgotten days,
Not the less loved because they could not last.
Make haste to put our hasty words away,
And hide them with dead leaves of yesterday,
Cast them aside among forgotten things,
Keep the love warm that turns to green life's grey.
Each little thorn that pricks these present hours
Is sure to hide under our memories' flowers,
Till we shall say, turning the dry wreath over,
'How sweet they were--these dear dead days of ours!'
poem by Edith Nesbit
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