Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  SONG. DAY IS FAIR, AND SO IS SHE

  Day is fair, and so is she

  Whom so soon I wed;

  But the night, when memory

  Guards my sleepless bed,

  And with cold hands brings once more

  Thorns from rose-sweet days of yore —

  Night I curse and dread.

  Day is sweet, as sweet as her

  Girlish tenderness;

  But the night, when near me stir

  Rustlings of a dress,

  Echoes of a loving tone

  Now renounced, forsworn, foregone,

  Night is bitterness.

  Day can stir my blood like wine

  Or her beauty’s fire,

  But at night I burn and pine,

  Torture, turn and tire,

  With a longing that is pain,

  Just to kiss and clasp again

  Love’s one lost desire.

  Day is glad and pure and bright,

  Pure, glad, bright as she;

  But the sad and guilty night

  Outlives day — for me.

  Oh, for days when day and night

  Equal balance of delight

  Were alike to me!

  In the day I see my feet

  Walk in steadfast wise,

  Following my lady sweet

  To her Paradise,

  Like some stray-recovered lamb;

  But I see the beast I am

  When the night stars rise.

  Yet in wedding day there lies

  Magic — so they say;

  Ghosts will have no chance to rise

  Near my Lady May.

  Vain the hope! In good or ill

  Those lost eyes will haunt me still

  Till my dying day.

  II

  Quickly died the August roses, and the kin of Lady May

  Dowered her richly, blessed her freely, and announced her wedding day;

  And his yearnings and remorses fainter grew as days went on

  ‘Neath the magic of the beauty of the woman he had won;

  And less often and less strongly was his fancy caught and crossed

  By remembrance of the dearness of the woman he had lost.

  Long sweet mornings in the boudoir where the flowers stood about,

  Whisperings in the balcony when stars and London lamps came out,

  Concerts, flower shows, garden parties, balls and dinners, rides and drives,

  All the time-killing distractions of these fashionable lives;

  Dreary, joyless as a desert, pleasure’s everlasting way,

  But enchantment can make lovely even deserts, so they say,

  Sandy waste, or waste of London season, where no green leaf grows,

  Shone on but by love or passion, each will blossom like the rose!

  Came no answer to the letter that announced his marriage day;

  But his people wrote that Lady Ladybird had gone away.

  So he sent to bid get ready to receive his noble wife.

  Two such loving women granted to one man, and in one life!

  Though he shuddered to remember with what ghosts the Moat House swarmed —

  Ghosts of lovely days and dreamings ere the time when he reformed —

  Yet he said, ‘She cannot surely greatly care, or I had heard

  Some impulsive, passionate pleading, had some sorrowing written word;

  She has journeyed to her convent — will be glad as ere I came,

  Through her beauty’s dear enchantment, to a life of shameless shame;

  And the memories of her dearness passion’s flaming sword shall slay,

  When the Moat House sees the bridal of myself and Lady May!’

  III

  Bright the mellow autumn sunshine glows upon the wedding day;

  Lawns are swept from leaves, and doorways are wreathed round with garlands gay,

  Flowery arches span the carriage drive from grass again to grass,

  Flowers are ready for the flinging when the wedded pair shall pass;

  Bells are ringing, clanging, clamouring from the belfry ‘mid the trees,

  And the sound rings out o’er woodlands, parks and gardens, lawns and leas;

  All the village gay with banners waits the signal, ‘Here they come!’

  To strew flowers, wave hats, drop curtseys, and hurra its ‘Welcome home!’

  At the gates the very griffins on the posts are wreathed with green.

  In their ordered lines wait servants for the pair to pass between;

  But among them there is missing more than one familiar face,

  And new faces, blank expectant, fill up each vacated place,

  And the other servants whisper, ‘Nurse would wail to see this day,

  It was well she left the service when “my Lady” ran away.’

  Louder, clearer ring the joy-bells through the shaken, shattered air,

  Till the echoes of them waken in the hillside far and fair;

  Level shine the golden sunbeams in the golden afternoon.

  In the east the wan ghost rises of the silver harvest moon.

  Hark! wheels was it? No, but fancy. Listen! No — yes — can you hear?

  Yes, it is the coming carriage rolling nearer and more near!

  Till the horse-hoofs strike the roadway, unmistakable and clear!

  They are coming! shout your welcome to my lord and lady fair:

  May God shower his choicest blessings on the happy wedded pair!

  Here they are! the open carriage and surrounding dusty cloud,

  Whence he smiles his proud acceptance of the homage of the crowd;

  And my lady’s sweet face! Bless her! there’s a one will help the poor,

  Eyes like those could never turn a beggar helpless from her door!

  Welcome, welcome! scatter flowers: see, they smile — bow left and right,

  Reach the lodge gates — God of heaven! what was that, the flash of white?

  Shehas sprung out from the ambush of the smiling, cheering crowd:

  ‘Fling your flowers — here’s my welcome!’ sharp the cry rings out and loud.

  Sudden sight of wild white face, and haggard eyes, and outstretched hands —

  Just one heart-beat’s space before the bridal pair that figure stands,

  Then the horses, past controlling, forward bound, their hoofs down thrust —

  And the carriage wheels jolt over something bloody in the dust.

  ‘Stop her! Stop her! Stop the horses!’ cry the people all too late,

  For my lord and Lady May have had their welcome at their gate.

  . . . . . .

  ’Twas the old nurse who sprang to her, raised the brown-haired, dust-soiled head,

  Looked a moment, closed the eyelids — then turned to my lord and said,

  Kneeling still upon the roadway, with her arm flung round the dead,

  While the carriage waited near her, blood and dust upon its wheels

  (Ask my lord within to tell you how a happy bridegroom feels):

  ‘Now, my lord, you are contented; you have chosen for your bride

  This same fine and dainty lady who is sitting by your side.

  Did ye tell her ere this bridal of the girl who bore your shame,

  Bore your love-vows — bore your baby — everything except your name?

  When they strewed the flowers to greet you, and the banners were unfurled,

  She has flung before your feet the sweetest flower in all the world!

  Woe’s the day I ever nursed you — loved your lisping baby word,

  For you grew to name of manhood, and to title of my lord;

  Woe’s the day you ever saw her, brought her home to wreck her life,

  Throwing by your human plaything, to seek out another wife.

  God will judge, and I would rather be the lost child lying there,

  With your babe’s milk in her bosom, your horse-hoof marks on her hair,

  Than be you when God shall thunder,
when your days on earth are filled,

  “Where is she I gave, who loved you, whom you ruined, left and killed?”

  Murderer, liar, coward, traitor, look upon your work and say

  That your heart is glad within you on your happy wedding day!

  And for you, my noble lady, take my blessing on your head,

  Though it is not like the blessing maidens look for when they wed.

  Never bride had such a welcome, such a flower laid on her way,

  As was given you when your carriage crushed her out of life to-day.

  Take my blessing — see her body, see what you and he have done —

  And I wish you joy, my lady, of the bridegroom you have won.’

  . . . . . .

  Like a beaten cur, that trembles at the whistling of the lash,

  He stands listening, hands a-tremble, face as pale as white wood ash;

  But the Lady May springs down, her soul shines glorious in her eyes,

  Moving through the angry silence comes to where the other lies,

  Gazes long upon her silent, but at last she turns her gaze

  On the nurse, and lips a-tremble, hands outstretched, she slowly says,

  ‘She is dead — but, but her baby—’ all her woman’s heart is wild

  With an infinite compassion for the little helpless child.

  Then she turns to snatch the baby from the arms of one near by,

  Holds it fast and looks towards him with a voiceless bitter cry,

  As imploring him to loose her from some nightmare’s deadly bands.

  Dogged looks he down and past her, and she sees and understands,

  Then she speaks—’I keep your baby — that’s my right in sight of men,

  But by God I vow I’ll never see your dastard face again.’

  So she turned with no word further towards the purple-clouded west,

  And passed thither with his baby clasped against her maiden breast.

  . . . . . .

  Little Ladybird was buried in the old ancestral tomb.

  From that grave there streams a shadow that wraps up his life in gloom,

  And he drags the withered life on, longs for death that will not come,

  The interminable night hours riven by that ‘Welcome home!’

  And he dares not leave this earthly hell of sharp remorse behind,

  Lest through death not rest but hotter fire of anguish he should find.

  Coward to the last, he will not risk so little for so much,

  So he burns, convicted traitor, in the hell self-made of such:

  And at night he wakes and shivers with unvanquishable dread

  At the ghosts that press each other for a place beside his bed,

  And he shudders to remember all the dearness that is dead.

  SONG. I HAD A SOUL

  I had a soul,

  Not strong, but following good if good but led.

  I might have kept it clean and pure and whole,

  And given it up at last, grown strong with days

  Of steadfast striving in truth’s stern sweet ways;

  Instead, I soiled and smutched and smothered it

  With poison-flowers it valued not one whit —

  Now it is dead.

  I had a heart

  Most true, most sweet, that on my loving fed.

  I might have kept her all my life, a part

  Of all my life — I let her starve and pine,

  Ruined her life and desolated mine.

  Sin brushed my lips — I yielded at a touch,

  Tempted so little, and I sinned so much,

  And she is dead.

  There was a life

  That in my sin I took and chained and wed,

  And made — perpetual remorse! — my wife.

  In my sin’s harvest she must reap her share,

  That makes its sheaves less light for me to bear.

  Oh, life I might have left to bloom and grow!

  I struck its root of happiness one blow,

  And it is dead.

  Once joy I had,

  Now I have only agony instead,

  That maddens, yet will never send me mad.

  The best that comes is numbed half-sick despair,

  Remembering how sweet the dear dead were.

  My whole life might have been one clear joy song!

  Now — oh, my heart, how still life is, how long,

  For joy is dead.

  Yet there is this:

  I chose the thorns not grapes, the stones not bread;

  I had my chance, they say, to gain or miss.

  And yet I feel it was predestinate

  From the first hour, from the first dawn of fate,

  That I, thus placed, when that hour should arise,

  Must act thus, and could not act otherwise.

  This is the worst of all that can be said;

  For hope is dead.

  UNOFFICIAL

  ONE morning, my heart can remember,

  I sat dreaming there,

  In the ‘governor’s’ chair

  In the office. The month was November,

  And the weather a subject for prayer.

  My mind strayed through visions unbounded —

  Far-off seemed the din

  That King William Street’s in,

  And the quill of the ‘junior’ sounded

  Like the squeak of an elf’s violin.

  I was roused with a start — some one entered.

  Though ground-glass divide

  Off the sanctum inside,

  The star where my homage was centred

  In the office without I descried.

  ‘Oh, kind Fate, to bring me my Kitty!

  The boy I can send

  At the bank to attend:

  One partner’s just gone from the City,

  And the other is at the West End.

  ’Change two pounds, boy, for threepenny pieces!

  And there isn’t a franc

  In the place! — I will thank

  You to take down these coupons from Creasy’s

  To the London and Westminster Bank.’

  He is gone! This can never be Kitty,

  Alone here with me!

  Can this ever be she,

  Laughing here in the heart of the City,

  With the old office cat on her knee?

  ‘I hope, Ben,’ she says, ‘you are stronger,

  And I hope it’s not true

  Work is injuring you;

  And I’d better not stay any longer,

  As you seem to have so much to do!’

  But she does not go yet. Still she lingers,

  Dry deed-boxes press

  The crisp folds of her dress,

  While the desk feels inquisitive fingers

  In a touch that is half a caress.

  Now, dreary and quiet the place is;

  Here’s the space on the floor

  I remember of yore,

  Which was brushed by her ribbons and laces

  As she smiled her ‘good-bye’ at the door.

  The violets she wore in her bosom,

  So scented, dew-wet,

  Are hard to forget;

  The dim office grew fair with each blossom,

  And their fragrance seems haunting it yet.

  I’m in partnership now with old Bradley;

  His brother is dead,

  So I stand as the Head

  Of affairs; and I’m thinking thus sadly

  Of the sweetness of days that have fled.

  My Wimbledon house — all that’s in it —

  My life, with its dower

  Of money-bag power —

  I would throw to the dogs in a minute,

  To recall from those days but one hour.

  Lost light of my eyes, little Kitty!

  Too late now, too late;

  But I’d give my estate

  To be once more a clerk in the City —

  In the office with you tête-�
�-tête.

  PESSIMISM

  I

  WHILE baby Spring sticks daisies in her hair,

  Or Summer laughs with flushed triumphant face

  We crush our heart rebellious at earth’s grace,

  And smile ‘How, like the season, life is fair!’

  But when the last leaf falls in the dull air,

  And skies grow pale, and fields lie lost a space,

  Ere their first furrow ploughs begin to trace,

  And pastures shiver desolate and bare —

  Oh, then one breathes; at last free from the sway

  Of selfish spring — from summer’s insolent reign,

  One dares to speak the truth — how all life’s way

  Is blank as autumn skies made grey with rain,

  Most blank when most the glad year bade forbear

  To mar her grace with our unveiled despair.

  II

  NOT Spring — too lavish of her bud and leaf —

  But Autumn, with sad eyes and brow austere,

  When fields are bare, and woods are brown and sere,

  And leaden skies weep their exhaustless grief.

  Spring is so much too bright, since Spring is brief.

  And in our hearts is autumn all the year,

  Least sad when the wide pastures are most drear,

  And fields grieve most robbed of the last gold sheaf.

  For when the plough goes down the brown wet field,

  A delicate doubtful throb of hope is ours —

  What if this coming Spring at last should yield

  Joy, with her too profuse unasked-for flowers?

  Not all our Springs of commonplace and pain

  Have taught us now that autumn hope is vain.

  GHOSTS

  YES — kiss my forehead where the pain

  Is grinding outwards from my brain!

  But will not pity teach you, too,

  To kiss these lips no fire burns through —

  These cheeks, made colourless and thin

  By years you had no portion in —

  These weary eyes that wake and ache

  Not for your sake — not for your sake:

  Kiss, child, and let your kisses see

  If they can find the heart in me!

  There is a heart — or used to be!

  I think the pain is growing less

  Under your passionless caress —

  Ah! could you teach my lips to crave

  But just such kisses as you gave,

  And could you, treading my life’s ways,

  But lay these ghosts of dear dead days

  That walk my world by day and night,

  And bar the way of all delight —

  If at your touch should waken — .. . . Vain!

  From heaven itself my soul would plain: