The Gray Folk

THE house, with blind unhappy face,
Stands lonely in the last year's corn,
And in the grayness of the morn
The gray folk come about the place.

By many pathways, gliding gray
They come past meadow, wood, and wold,
Come by the farm and by the fold
From the green fields of yesterday.

Past lock and chain and bolt and bar
They press, to stand about my bed,
And like the faces of the dead
I know their hidden faces are.

They will not leave me in the day
And when night falls they will not go,
Because I silenced, long ago,
The only voice that they obey.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Last Act

NEVER a ring or a lock of hair
Or a letter stained with tears,
No crown for the princely hour to wear,
To be mocked of the rebel years.
Not a spoken vow, not a written page
And never a rose or a rhyme
To tell to the wintry ear of age
The tale of the summer time.

Never a tear or a farewell kiss
When the time is come to part;
For the kiss would burn and the tear would hiss
On the smouldering fire in my heart.
But let me creep to the kindly clay,
And nothing be left to tell
How I played in your play a year and a day,
And died when the curtain fell!

poem by Edith Nesbit
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Song V

THE sunshine of your presence lies
On the glad garden of my heart
And bids the leaves of silence part
To show the flowers to your dear eyes,
And flower on flower blooms there and dies
And still new buds awakened spring,
For sunshine makes the garden wise,
To know the time for blossoming.

Night is no time for blossoming,
Your garden then dreams otherwise,
Of vanished Summer, vanished Spring,
And how the dearest flower first dies.
Yet from your ministering eyes
Though night hath drawn me far apart
On the still garden of my heart
The moonlight of your memory lies.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Magic Flower

THROUGH many days and many days
The seed of love lay hidden close;
We walked the dusty tiresome ways
Where never a leaf or blossom grows.
And in the darkness, all the while,
The little seed its heart uncurled,
And we by many a weary mile
Travelled towards it, round the world.

To the hid centre of the maze
At last we came, and there we found--
O happy day, O day of days!
--Twin seed-leaves breaking holy ground.
We dropped life's joys, a garnered sheaf,
And spell-bound watched, still hour by hour,
Magic on magic, leaf by leaf,
The unfolding of our love's white flower.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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Sea-Shells

I gathered shells upon the sand,
Each shell a little perfect thing,
So frail, yet potent to withstand
The mountain-waves' wild buffeting.
Through storms no ship could dare to brave
The little shells float lightly, save
All that they might have lost of fine
Shape and soft colour crystalline.

Yet I amid the world's wild surge
Doubt if my soul can face the strife,
The waves of circumstance that urge
That slight ship on the rocks of life.
O soul, be brave, for He who saves
The frail shell in the giant waves,
Will bring thy puny bark to land
Safe in the hollow of His hand.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Refusal

MINE is a palace fair to see,
All hung with gold and silver things,
It is more glorious than a king's,
And crownèd queens might envy me.

Ah, no, I will not let you in!
Stay rather at the gates and weep
For all the splendour that I keep,
The treasures that you cannot win.

While you desire and I refuse,
For both the palace still is here--
Its turrets gold, its silver gear
Are yours to wish for--mine to use.

But if I let you in, I know
The spell would break, the palace fade,

[...] Read more

poem by Edith Nesbit
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Spring Song

ALL winter through I sat alone,
Doors barred and windows shuttered fast,
And listened to the wind's faint moan,
And ghostly mutterings of the past;
And in the pauses of the rain,
'Mid whispers of dead sorrow and sin,
Love tapped upon the window pane:
I had no heart to let him in.

But now, with spring, my doors stand wide;
My windows let delight creep through;
I hear the skylark sing outside;
I see the crocus, golden new.
The pigeons on my window-sill,
Winging and wooing, flirt and flout,--
Now Love must enter if he will,
I have no heart to keep him out.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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Teint Neutre

WIDE downs all gray, with gray of clouds roofed over,
Chill fields stripped naked of their gown of grain,
Small fields of rain-wet grass and close-grown clover,
Wet, wind-blown trees--and, over all, the rain.

Does memory lie? For Hope her missal closes
So far away the may and roses seem;
Ah! was there ever a garden red with roses?
Ah! were you ever mine save in a dream?

So long it is since Spring, the skylark waking
Heard her own praises in his perfect strain;
Low hang the clouds, the sad year's heart is breaking,
And mine, my heart--and, over all, the rain.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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In The People's Park

Many's the time I've found your face
Fresh as a bunch of flowers in May,
Waiting for me at our own old place
At the end of the working day.
Many's the time I've held your hand
On the shady seat in the People's Park,
And blessed the blaring row of the band
And kissed you there in the dark.

Many's the time you promised true,
Swore it with kisses, swore it with tears:
'I'll marry no one without it's you -
If we have to wait for years.'
And now it's another chap in the Park
That holds your hand like I used to do;
And I kiss another girl in the dark,
And try to fancy it's you!

poem by Edith Nesbit
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In The Enchanted Tower

THE waves in thunderous menace break
Upon the rocks below my tower,
And none will dare the Sea-king's power
And venture shipwreck for my sake.

Yet once,--my lamp a path of light
Across the darkling sea had cast--
I saw a sail; at last, at last,
It came towards me through the night.

My lamp had been the beacon set
To lead the ship through mist and foam,
The ship that came to take me home,
To that far land I half forget.

But since my tower is built so high,
And surf-robed rocks curl hid below,
I quenched my lamp--and, weeping low
I saw my ship go safely by!

poem by Edith Nesbit
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