Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

With banners flying fair and free

  But many griefs had made me wise

  And I refused to bow the knee.

  Then one drew near who bore the flower

  Of all the flowers of June and May;

  But many griefs had lent me power

  And I was strong to turn away.

  Then came a beggar to my gate

  With shoulders bowed to sorrow’s pack,

  So weary and so desolate

  I had no heart to turn him back.

  I let him share my board, my bed,

  I warmed him in my shrinking breast,

  I gave him all I had, and said:

  “You, only you, have been my guest.

  “Love passed in many a fair disguise

  But never could an entrance win,

  But you came in such piteous wise,

  Poor friend, I could but let you in.”

  Low laughed my guest: “Kind friend!” said he,

  And dropped the rags he was weary of;

  And I, betrayed, saw over me

  The terrible face of outraged Love.

  IN THE SHALLOWS.

  AMONG the shallows where the sand

  Is golden and the waves are small,

  I love to lie, and to my hand

  How many little treasures fall!

  What shells and seaweed grace the shore,

  What happy birds on happy wings,

  And for companions, what a store

  Of humble, happy, living things!

  Yet the sea’s depths are also mine,

  And in the old days I used to dive

  Into the caves, where corals shine

  And where the shimmering mer-folk live.

  I am the master of the sea

  In deeps where fairy flowers uncurl;

  That treasure-house belongs to me,

  Those amber halls, those stairs of pearl.

  But now thereto I go no more,

  Because of all the argosies,

  Deep sunk upon the ocean floor,

  Where all the world’s lost treasure lies.

  Where loveless laughter curls the lips

  Of wild sea creatures at their sport

  About the bones of noble ships,

  My ships, that never came to port.

  AND THE RAINS DESCENDED AND THE FLOODS CAME.

  NOW the far waves roll nearer and more near,

  The wind’s awake, the pitiless wind’s awake,

  It shrieks the menace that I dare not hear,

  Soon at my feet the angry waves will break

  In desolating wrath — and here I stand

  Helpless my house is built upon the sand.

  O you, whose house upon a rock is set,

  Laugh, safe and sure, at threatening wave and wind.

  You chose the better part and yet — and yet,

  There was no other ground that I could find,

  And I was weary and I longed to raise

  A house to guard my shivering nights and days.

  And it was pleasant in the house I made,

  While still the floods and winds were held asleep.

  I blessed it at the dawn, at night I prayed

  As though its dear foundations had been deep

  Sunk in the rock. I whispered in surmise,

  “What if winds never wake, floods never rise?”

  And now the waves are near and very near,

  And here I wait and wonder which may be

  The wave in which my house will disappear,

  My little house that loved and sheltered me,

  Where joy still sings, her garland in her hand,

  Built on the sand, oh God, built on the sand!

  THE STAR.

  I HAD a star to sing by, a beautiful star that led,

  But when I sang of its splendour the world in its wisdom said:

  “Sweet are your songs, yet the singer sings but in madness when

  He hymns but stars unbeholden of us his fellows of men;

  Glow-worms we see and marshlights; sing us sweet songs of those

  For the guerdons we have to give you, laurel and gold and rose;

  Or if you must sing of stars, unseen of your brother man,

  Go, starve with your eyes on your vision; your star may save if it can!”

  So I said, “If I starve and die I never again shall see

  The glory, the high white radiance that hallows the world for me;

  I will sing their songs, if it must be, and when I have golden store,

  I will turn from the marsh and the glow-worms, and sing of my star once more.”

  So I walked in the warm wet by-ways, not daring to lift my eyes

  Lest love should drive me to singing my star supreme in the skies,

  And the world cried out, “We will crown him, he sings of the lights that are,

  Glories of marshlight and glow-worms, not visions vain of a star!”

  I said, “Now my brows are laurelled, my hands filled full of their gold,

  I will sing the starry songs that these earthworms bade withhold.

  It is time to sing of my star!” for I dreamed that my star still shone,

  Then I lifted my eyes in my triumph. Night! night! and my star was gone.

  VII.

  THE PRODIGAL SON.

  COME home, come home, for your eyes are sore

  With the glare of the noonday sun,

  And nothing looks as it did before,

  And the best of the day is done.

  You have played your match, and ridden your race,

  You have fought in your fight — and lost;

  And life has set its claws in your face,

  And you know what the scratches cost.

  Out there the world is cruel and loud,

  It strikes at the beaten man;

  Come out of the press of the stranger crowd

  To the place where your life began.

  The best robe lies in the cedar chest,

  And your father’s ring is here;

  You have known the worst, come home to the best —

  You will pay for it, never fear!

  In every kiss of your sister’s mouth,

  In each tear from your mother’s eyes,

  You will pay the price of the days in the South

  Where the far-off country lies.

  DESPAIR.

  SMILE on me, mouth of red — so much too red,

  Shine on me, eyes which darkened lashes shade,

  Turn, turn my way, oh glorious golden head,

  My soul is lost, then let the price be paid!

  Amid rich flowers your rosy lamplight gleams,

  Amid rich hangings pass your scented hours,

  And woods and fields are green but in my dreams,

  And only in my dreams grow meadow-flowers.

  I have forgotten everything but you —

  The apple orchard where the whitethroat sings,

  The quiet fields, the moonlight, and the dew,

  The virgin’s bower that in wet hedgerow clings.

  I have forgotten how the cool grass waves

  Where clean winds blow, and where good women pray

  For happy, honest men, safe in their graves;

  And — oh, my God! I would I were as they!

  THE TEMPTATION.

  YOU bring your love too late, dear, I have no love to buy it,

  I spent my love on worthless toys, at fairs you do not know;

  I am a bankrupt trader — dear eyes, do not deny it,

  I could have bought your love, dear, but that was long ago.

  My soul has left me widowed, my heart has made me orphan,

  Leave me — all good things, dear, have left me — leave me too!

  For here is ice no tears of yours, no smiles of yours can soften:

  Leave me, leave me, leave me, I have no love for you!

  I have no flowers to give you, they grow not in my garden;

  I have no songs to sing you, my songs have all
been sung;

  I have no hope of heaven, no faith in any pardon,

  I might have loved you once, dear, when I was good and young.

  I will not steal, nor cheat you; take back the heart you lent me.

  O God, whom I have outraged, now teach me how to pray,

  That love come never again so near me to torment me,

  Lest I be found less faithful than, by Thy grace, to-day.

  SECOND NATURE.

  WHEN I was young how fair the skies,

  Such folly of cloud, such blue depths wise,

  Such dews of morn, such calms of eve,

  So many the lure and the reprieve —

  Life seemed a toy to break and mend

  And make a charm of in the end.

  Then slowly all the dew dried up

  And only dust lay in the cup;

  And since, to slake his thirst, man must,

  I sought a cup that had no dust,

  And found it at the Goat and Vine —

  Mingled of brandy, beer and wine.

  The goat-cup, straight, drew down the skies

  And lit them in lunatick wise:

  What had been rose went scarlet red,

  And the pearl tints grew like the dead.

  And the fresh primrose of the morn

  Was the wet red of rain-spoiled corn.

  Now, with a head that aches and nods

  I hold weak hands out to the gods;

  And oh! forgiving gods and kind,

  They give me healing to my mind,

  And show me once again the lawn

  Green and clear-gemmed with dews of dawn.

  O gods, who look down from above

  Upon our tangle of lust and love,

  And, in your purity, perceive

  The worth of what our follies leave:

  Give us but this, and sink the rest —

  To know that dew and dawn are best.

  DE PROFUNDIS.

  NOW I am cast into the serpent pit

  And, catching difficult breath

  From the writhing, loathsome, ceaseless stir of it,

  The venomous whispers of curling, clasping Death,

  I lift my soul out of the pit to Thee

  And reaching with my soul to where Thou art

  Look down, seeing with free heart

  The beast God gave my soul for company

  Lie with companions fit;

  And bid, with a good will,

  The serpent-fangs of ill

  Take their foul fill

  Of the foul fell it wore.

  Though a thousand serpent heads were raised to slay,

  A thousand twisting coils writhed where it lay,

  There lies the beast, there let it lie for me

  And agonize and rave;

  For Thou has raised my soul, Thy soul, to Thee!

  Thy soul, dear Lord, Thou hast been strong to save!

  VIII.

  AT THE GATE.

  THE monastery towers, as pure and fair

  As virgin vows, reached up white hands to Heaven;

  The walls, to guard the hidden heart of prayer,

  Were strong as sin, and white as sin forgiven;

  And there came holy men, by world’s woe driven;

  And all about the gold-green meadows lay

  Flower-decked, like children dear that keep May-holiday.

  “Here,” said the Abbot, “let us spend our days,

  Days sweetened by the lilies of pure prayer,

  Hung with white garlands of the rose of praise;

  And, lest the World should enter with her snare —

  Enter and laugh and take us unaware

  With her red rose, her purple and her gold —

  Choose we a stranger’s hand the porter’s keys to hold.”

  They chose a beggar from the world outside

  To keep their worldward door for them, and he,

  Filled with a humble and adoring pride,

  Built up a wall of proud humility

  Between the monastery’s sanctity

  And the poor, foolish, humble folk who came

  To ask for love and care, in the dear Saviour’s name.

  For when the poor crept to the guarded gate

  To ask for succour, when the tired asked rest,

  When weary souls, bereft and desolate,

  Craved comfort, when the murmur of the oppressed

  Surged round the grove where prayer had made her nest,

  The porter bade such take their griefs away,

  And at some other door their bane and burden lay.

  “For this,” he said, “is the white house of prayer,

  Where day and night the holy voices rise

  Through the chill trouble of our earthly air,

  And enter at the gate of Paradise.

  Trample no more our flower-fields in such wise,

  Nor crave the alms of our deep-laden bough;

  The prayers of holy men are alms enough, I trow.”

  So, seeing that no sick or sorrowing folk

  Came ever to be healed or comforted,

  The Abbot to his brothers gladly spoke:

  “God has accepted our poor prayers,” he said;

  “Over our land His answering smile is spread.

  He has put forth His strong and loving hand,

  And sorrow and sin and pain have ceased in all the land.

  “So make we yet more rich our hymns of praise,

  Warm we our prayers against our happy heart.

  Since God hath taken the gift of all our days

  To make a spell that bids all wrong depart,

  Has turned our praise to balm for the world’s smart,

  Fulfilled of prayer and praise be every hour,

  For God transfigures praise, and transmutes prayer, to power.”

  So went the years. The flowers blossomed now

  Untrampled by the dusty, weary feet;

  Unbroken hung the green and golden bough,

  For none came now to ask for fruit or meat,

  For ghostly food, or common bread to eat;

  And dreaming, praying, the monks were satisfied,

  Till, God remembering him, the beggar-porter died.

  When they had covered up the foolish head,

  And on the foolish loving heart heaped clay,

  “Which of us, brothers, now,” the Abbot said,

  “Will face the world, to keep the world away?”

  But all their hearts were hard with prayer, and “Nay,”

  They cried, “ah, bid us not our prayers to leave;

  Ah, father, not to-day, for this is Easter Eve”.

  And, while they murmured, to their midst there came

  A beggar saying, “Brothers, peace, be still!

  I am your Brother, in our Father’s name,

  And I will be your porter, if ye will,

  Guarding your gate with what I have of skill”.

  So all they welcomed him and closed the door,

  And gat them gladly back unto their prayers once more.

  But, lo! no sooner did the prayer arise,

  A golden flame athwart the chancel dim,

  Then came the porter crying, “Haste, arise!

  A sick old man waits you to tend on him;

  And many wait — a knight whose wound gapes grim,

  A red-stained man, with red sins to confess,

  A mother pale, who brings her child for you to bless”.

  The brothers hastened to the gate, and there

  With unaccustomed hand and voice they tried

  To ease the body’s pain, the spirit’s care;

  But ere the task was done, the porter cried:

  “Behold, the Lord sets your gate open wide,

  For here be starving folk who must be fed,

  And little ones that cry for love and daily bread!”

  And, with each slow-foot hour, came ever a throng

  Of piteous wanderers, sinful folk and sad,

&nbs
p; And still the brothers ministered, but long

  The day seemed, with no prayer to make them glad;

  No holy, meditative joys they had,

  No moment’s brooding-place could poor prayer find,

  Mid all those heart to heal and all those wounds to bind.

  And when the crowded, sunlit day at last

  Left the field lonely with its trampled flowers,

  Into the chapel’s peace the brothers passed

  To quell the memory of those hurrying hours.

  “Our holy time,” they said, “once more is ours!

  Come, let us pay our debt of prayer and praise,

  Forgetting in God’s light the darkness of man’s ways!”

  But, ere their voices reached the first psalm’s end,

  They heard a new, strange rustling round their house;

  Then came the porter: “Here comes many a friend,

  Pushing aside your budding orchard boughs;

  Come, brothers, justify your holy vows.

  Here be God’s patient, poor, four-footed things

  Seek healing at God’s well, whence loving-kindness springs.”

  Then cried the Abbot in a vexed amaze,

  “Our brethren we must aid, if ’tis God’s will;

  But the wild creatures of the forest ways

  Himself God heals with His Almighty skill.

  And charity is good, and love — but still

  God shall not look in vain for the white prayers

  We send on silver feet to climb the starry stairs;

  “For, of all worthy things, prayer has most worth,

  It rises like sweet incense up to heaven,

  And from God’s hand falls back upon the earth,

  Being of heavenly bread the accepted leaven.

  Through prayer is virtue saved and sin forgiven;

  In prayer the impulse and the force are found

  That bring in purple and gold the fruitful seasons round.

  “For prayer comes down from heaven in the sun

  That giveth life and joy to all things made;

  Prayer falls in rain to make broad rivers run

  And quickens the seeds in earth’s brown bosom laid;

  By prayer the red-hung branch is earthward weighed,

  By prayer the barn grows full, and full the fold,

  For by man’s prayer God works his wonders manifold.”

  The porter seemed to bow to the reproof;

  But when the echo of the night’s last prayer

  Died in the mystery of the vaulted roof,

  A whispered memory in the hallowed air,

  The Abbot turned to find him standing there.

  “Brother,” he said, “I have healed the woodland things