Complete Novels of E Nesbit
Page 623
God let me in that perfect moment hear.
Oh, the sweet rush of gladness and delight,
Of human striving to the heavenly light,
Of great ideals, permanent and dear!
All the old dreams linked with the newer faith,
All the old faith with higher dreams enwound,
Surged through the very heart of loss and death
In passionate waves of pure and perfect sound.
The past came back: the Christ, the Mother-maid,
The incense of the hearts that praised and prayed,
The past’s peace, and the future’s faith profound.
“Ave Maria,
Gratiâ plena,
Dominus tecum:
Benedicta tu
In mulieribus,
Et benedictus fructus ventris tui Jesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus
Nunc et in horâ mortis nostræ. Amen.”
And all the soul of all the past was here —
A human heart that loved the great and good,
A heart to which the great ideals were dear,
One that had heard and that had understood,
As I had done, the church’s desolate moan,
And answered it as I had never done,
And never willed to do and never could.
I left the church, glad to the soul and strong,
And passed along by fresh earth-scented ways;
Safe in my heart the echo of that song
Lived, as it will live with me all my days.
The church will never lose that echo, nor
Be quite as lonely ever any more;
Nor will my soul, where too that echo stays.
RYE.
A little town that stands upon a hill,
Against whose base the white waves once leaped high;
Now spreading round it, even, green and still,
The placid pastures of the marshes lie.
The red-roofed houses and the gray church tower
Bear half asleep the sunshine and the rain;
They wait, so long have waited, for the hour
When the wild, welcome sea shall come again.
The lovely lights across the marshes pass,
The dykes grow fair with blossom, reed and sedge;
The patient beasts crop the long, cool, green grass,
The willows shiver at the water’s edge;
But the town sleeps, it will not wake for these.
The sea some day again will round it break,
Will surge across these leagues of pastoral peace,
And then the little town will laugh, and wake.
THE BALLAD OF THE TWO SPELLS.
“Why dost thou weep?” the mass priest said;
“Fair dame, why dost thou weep?”
“I weep because my lord is laid
In an enchanted sleep.
“It was upon our bridal day
The bitter thing befel,
My love and lord was lured away
By an ill witch’s spell.
“She lured him to her hidden bower
Among the cypress trees,
And there she holdeth manhood’s flower
Asleep across her knees.”
“Pray to our Father for His aid,
God knows ye need it sore.”
“O God of Heaven, have I not prayed?
But I will pray no more.
“God will not listen to my prayer,
And never a Saint will hear,
Else should I stand beside him there,
Or he be with me here.
“But there he sleeps — and I wake here
And wet my bread with tears —
And still they say that God can hear,
And still God never hears.
“If I could learn a mighty spell,
Would get my love awake,
I’d sell my soul alive to hell,
And learn it for his sake.
“So say thy mass, and go thy way,
And let my grief alone —
Teach thou the happy how to pray
And leave the devil his own.”
* * * * *
Within the witch’s secret bower
Through changeful day and night,
Hour after priceless golden hour,
Lay the enchanted knight.
The witch’s arms about him lay,
His face slept in her hair;
The devil taught her the spell to say
Because she was so fair.
And all about the bower were flowers
And gems and golden gear,
And still she watched the slow-foot hours
Because he was so dear.
Watched in her tower among the trees
For his long sleep to break;
And still he lay across her knees
And still he did not wake.
What whisper stirs the curtain’s fold?
What foot comes up the stair?
What hand draws back the cloth of gold
And leaves the portal bare?
The night wind sweeps through all the room,
The tapers fleer and flare,
And from the portal’s outer gloom
His true love enters there.
“Give place, thou wicked witch, give place,
For his true wife is here,
Who for his sake has lost heaven’s grace
Because he was so dear.
“My soul is lost and his is won;
Thy spells his sleep did make,
But I know thy spell, the only one
Can get my lord awake.”
The witch looked up, her shining eyes
Gleamed through her yellow hair —
(She was cast out of
Paradise Because she was so fair).
“Speak out the spell, thou loving wife,
And what it beareth, bide,
Go — bring thy lover back to life
And give thy lord a bride.”
The wife’s soul burned in every word
As low she spoke the spell,
Weeping in heaven, her angel heard,
One, hearing, laughed in hell.
And when the spell was spoken through,
Sudden the knight awoke
And turned his eyes upon the two —
And neither of them spoke.
He did not see his pale-faced wife
Whom sorrow had made wise,
He only saw the light of life
Burn in the witch’s eyes.
He only saw her bosom sweet,
Her golden fleece of hair,
And he fell down before her feet
Because she was so fair.
She stooped and raised him from the floor
And held him in her arms;
She said: “He would have waked no more
For any of my charms.
“You only could pronounce the spell
Would set his spirit free;
And you have sold your soul to hell
And wakened him — for me!
“I hold him now by my blue eyes
And by my yellow hair,
He never will miss Paradise,
Because I am so fair.”
The wife looked back, looked back to see
The golden-curtained place,
Her lord’s head on the witch’s knee,
Her gold hair on his face.
“I would my soul once more were mine,
Then God my prayer would hear
And slay my soul in place of thine
Because thou art so dear!”
IN MEMORIAM
PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON.
When you were tired and went away,
I said, amid my new heart-ache:
“When I catch breath from pain some day,
I will teach grief a worthier way,
And make a great song for his sake!”
You gave me love such years ago —
A child who could not comprehend
Its worth, yet kept it to the end —
How can I sing when you lie low?
Not always silence. O my dear,
Not when the empty heart and hand
Reach out for you, who are not near.
If you could see, if you could hear,
I think that you would understand.
The grief that can get leave to run
In channels smooth of tender song
Wins solace mine has never won.
I have left all my work undone,
And only dragged my grief along.
Many who loved you many years
(Not more than I shall always do),
Will breathe their songs in your dead ears;
God help them if they weep such tears
As I, who have no song for you.
You would forgive me, if you knew!
Silence is all I have to bring
(Where tears are many, words are few);
I have but tears to bring to you,
For, since you died, I cannot sing!
RONDEAU TO AUSTIN DOBSON.
Your dainty Muse her form arrays
In soft brocades of bygone days.
She walks old gardens where the dews
Gem sundials and trim-cut yews
And tremble on the tulip’s blaze.
The magic scent her charm conveys
Which lives on when the rose decays.
She had her portrait done by Greuze —
Your dainty Muse!
Mine’s hardier — walks life’s muddy ways
Barefooted; preaches, sometimes prays,
Is modern, is advanced, has views;
Goes in for lectures, reads the news,
And sends her homespun verse to praise
Your dainty Muse!
RONDEAU TO W. E. HENLEY.
Dream and delight had passed away,
Their springs dried by the dusty day,
And sordid fetters bound me tight,
Forged for poor song by money-might;
I writhed, and could not get away.
There might have been no flowering may
In all the world — life looked so gray
With dust of railways, choking quite
Dream and delight.
When, lo! your white book came my way,
With scent of honey-buds and hay,
Starshine and day-dawns pure and bright,
The rose blood-red, the may moon-white.
I owe you — would I could repay —
Dream and delight.
TO WALTER SICKERT.
(IN RETURN FOR A SIGHT OF HIS PICTURE “RED CLOVER”.)
There is a country far away from here —
A world of dreams — a fair enchanted land —
Where woods bewitched and fairy forests stand,
And all the seasons rhyme through all the year.
The greenest meadows, deepest skies, are there;
There grows the rose of dreams, that never dies;
And there men’s heads and hands and hearts and eyes
Are never, as here, too tired to find them fair.
Thither, when life becomes too hard to bear,
The poet and the painter steal away
To watch those glories of the night and day
Which here the days and nights so seldom wear.
In that brave land I, too, have part and lot.
Dim woods, lush meadows, little red-roofed towns,
Walled flowery gardens, wide gray moors and downs;
Sedge, meadow-sweet, and wet forget-me-not;
The Norman church, with whispering elm trees round;
A certain wood where earliest violets grow;
One wide still marsh where hidden waters flow;
The cottage porch with honey-buds enwound —
These are my portion of enchanted ground,
To these the years add somewhat in their flight;
Some wood or field, deep-dyed in heart’s delight,
Becomes my own — treasure to her who found.
To my dream fields your art adds one field more,
A field of red, red clover, blossoming,
Where the sun shines, and where more skylarks sing
Than ever in any field of mine before.
OLD AGE.
Between the midnight and the morn
When wake the weary heart and head,
Troops of gray ghosts from lands forlorn
Keep tryst about my sleepless bed.
I hear their cold, thin voices say:
“Your youth is dying; by-and-by
All that makes up your life to-day,
Withered by age, will shrink and die!”
Will it be so? Will age slay all
The dreams of love and hope and faith —
Put out the sun beyond recall,
And lap us in a living death?
Will hearts grown old forget their youth?
And hands grown old give up the strife?
Shall we accept as ordered truth
The dismal anarchy of life?
Better die now — at once be free
Of hope and fear — renounce the whole:
For of what worth would living be
Should one — grown old — outlive one’s soul?
Yet see: through curtains closely drawn
Creeps in the exorcising light;
The sacred fingers of the dawn
Put all my troop of ghosts to flight.
And then I hear the brave Sun’s voice,
Though still the skies are gray and dim:
“Old age comes never — Oh, rejoice —
Except to those who beckon him.
“All that youth’s dreams are nourished by,
By that shall dreams in age be fed —
Thy noble dreams can never die
Until thyself shall wish them dead!”
THE RAINBOW AND THE ROSE
CONTENTS
THE THINGS THAT MATTER.
THE CONFESSION.
WORK.
THE JILTED LOVER TO HIS MOTHER.
THE WILL TO LIVE.
THE BEATIFIC VISION.
MUMMY WHEAT.
THE BEECH TREE.
IN ABSENCE.
SILENCE.
RAISON D’ETRE.
THE ONLOOKER.
THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.
AT PARTING.
SONG. I HEAR THE WAVES TO-NIGHT
RENUNCIATION.
THE VEIL OF MAYA.
SONG. THE SUNSHINE OF YOUR PRESENCE LIES
TO VERA, WHO ASKED A SONG.
THE POET TO HIS LOVE.
THE MAIDEN’S PRAYER.
SONG. LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG
THE MAGIC FLOWER.
LA DERNIERE ROBE DE SOI.
THE LEAST POSSIBLE.
EN TOUT CAS.
APPEAL.
ST. VALENTINE’S DAY.
CHAGRIN D’AMOUR.
BRIDAL EVE.
LOVE AND LIFE.
FROM THE ITALIAN.
OUT OF THE FULNESS OF THE HEART THE MOUTH SPEAKETH.
SUMMER SONG.
THE LOWER ROOM.
SONG. THE SUMMER DOWN THE GARDEN WALKS
MAY SONG.
TO IRIS.
BIRTHDAY TALK FOR A CHILD. (IRIS.)
TO ROSAMUND.
FROM THE TUSCAN.
MOTHER SONG.
THE ISLAND.
POSSESSION.
ACCESSION.
THE DESTROYER.
THE EGOISTS.
THE WAY OF LOVE.
TO ONE WHO PLEADED FOR CANDOUR IN LOVE.
THE ENCHANTED GARDEN.
THE POOR MAN’S GUEST.
IN THE SHALLOWS.
AND THE RAINS DESCENDED AND THE FLOODS CAME.
THE STAR.
THE PRODIGAL SON.
DESPAIR.
THE TEMPTATION.
SECOND NATURE.
DE PROFUNDIS.
AT THE GATE.
VIA AMORIS.
RETRO SATHANAS.
THE OLD DISPENSATION.
THE NEW DISPENSATION.
THE THREE KINGS.
AFTER DEATH.
CHLOE.
INVOCATION.
THE LAST BETRAYAL.
A PRAYER FOR THE KING’S MAJESTY.
TRUE LOVE AND NEW LOVE.
DEATH.
IN MEMORY OF SARETTA DEAKIN.
A PARTING.
TO
IRIS AND ROSAMUND
I.
THE THINGS THAT MATTER.
NOW that I’ve nearly done my days,
And grown too stiff to sweep or sew,
I sit and think, till I’m amaze,
About what lots of things I know:
Things as I’ve found out one by one —
And when I’m fast down in the clay,
My knowing things and how they’re done
Will all be lost and thrown away.
There’s things, I know, as won’t be lost,
Things as folks write and talk about:
The way to keep your roots from frost,
And how to get your ink spots out.
What medicine’s good for sores and sprains,
What way to salt your butter down,
What charms will cure your different pains,
And what will bright your faded gown.
But more important things than these,
They can’t be written in a book:
How fast to boil your greens and peas,
And how good bacon ought to look;
The feel of real good wearing stuff,
The kind of apple as will keep,
The look of bread that’s rose enough,
And how to get a child asleep.
Whether the jam is fit to pot,
Whether the milk is going to turn,
Whether a hen will lay or not,
Is things as some folks never learn.
I know the weather by the sky,
I know what herbs grow in what lane;
And if sick men are going to die,
Or if they’ll get about again.
Young wives come in, a-smiling, grave,
With secrets that they itch to tell:
I know what sort of times they’ll have,
And if they’ll have a boy or gell.
And if a lad is ill to bind,
Or some young maid is hard to lead,
I know when you should speak ’em kind,
And when it’s scolding as they need.
I used to know where birds ud set,
And likely spots for trout or hare,
And God may want me to forget