Child's Song in Spring
The Silver Birch is a dainty lady,
She wears a satin gown;
The elm tree makes the old churchyard shady,
She will not live in town.
The English oak is a sturdy fellow,
He gets his green coat late;
The willow is smart in a suit of yellow
While brown the beech trees wait.
Such a gay green gown God gives the larches-
As green as he is good!
The hazels hold up their arms for arches,
When spring rides through the wood.
The chestnut’s proud, and the lilac’s pretty,
The poplar’s gentle and tall,
But the plane tree’s kind to the poor dull city-
I love him best of all!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Home-Coming
This was our house. To this we came
Lighted by love with torch aflame,
And in this chamber, door locked fast,
I held you to my heart at last.
This was our house. In this we knew
The worst that Time and Fate can do.
You left the room bare, wide the door;
You did not love me any more.
Where once the kind warm curtain hung
The spider's ghostly cloth is flung;
The beetle and the woodlouse creep
Where once I loved your lovely sleep.
Yet so the vanished spell endures,
That this, our house, still, still is yours.
Here, spite of all these years apart,
I still can hold you to my heart!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Love And Life
LOVE only sings when Love is young,
When Love is young and still at play,
How shall we count the sweet songs sung
When Love and Joy kept holiday?
But now Love has to earn his bread
By lifelong stress and toil of tears,
He finds his nest of song-birds dead
That sang so sweet in other years.
For Love's a man now, strong and brave,
To fight for you, for you to live,
And Love, that once such bright songs gave,
Has better things than songs to give;
He gives you now a lifelong faith,
A hand to help in joy or pain,
And he will sing no more, till Death
Shall come to make him young again!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Spring Song III
HERE'S the Spring-time, Sweet!
Earth's green gown is new,
Lambs begin to bleat,
Doves begin to coo,
Birds begin to woo
In the wood and lane;
Sweet, the tale is true
Spring is here again!
I have been discreet
All the winter through;
Now, before your feet,
Blossoms let me strew.
Flowers, as yet, are few;
Will my lady deign
Take this flower or two?
Spring is here again
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Eternal
Your dear desired grace,
Your hands, your lips of red,
The wonder of your perfect face
Will fade, like sweet rose-petals shed,
When you are dead.
Your beautiful hair
Dust in the dust will lie -
But not the light I worship there,
The gold the sunshine crowns you by -
This will not die.
Your beautiful eyes
Will be closed up with clay;
But all the magic they comprise,
The hopes, the dreams, the ecstasies
Pass not away.
All I desire and see
Will be a carrion thing;
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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Ebb-Tide
NOW the vexed clouds, wind-driven, spread wings of white,
Long leaning wings across the sea and land.
The waves creep back bequeathing to our sight
The treasure-house of their deserted sand,
And where the nearer waves curl white and low,
Knee-deep in swirling brine the slow-foot shrimpers go.
Pale breadth of sand, where clamorous gulls confer,
Marked with broad arrows by their planted feet;
White rippled pools, where late deep waters were
And ever the white waves marshalled in retreat
And the grey wind in sole supremacy
O'er opal and amber cold of darkening sky and sea.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Invitation
DELIA, my dear, delightful Lady,
Time flies in town, you say,
New gowns shine fresh as May,
The Park is glad and gay,
Ah--but the woods are green and shady--
Come, Delia, come away!
The crown your kneeling slaves award you
Is beauty's royal right;
Your beauty, Delia, might
Win crowns more sweet, more bright:
Your niggard world will not afford you
The crown of Heart's delight.
Sable your court will wear--to lose you;
My garden's dressed in green,
Such buds its leaves between
As never yet were seen;
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Old Dispensation
O THOU, who, high in heaven,
To man hast given
This clouded earthly life
All storm and strife,
Blasted with ice and fire,
Love and desire,
Filled with dead faith, and love
That change is master of--
O Thou, who mightest have given
To all Thy heaven,
But who, instead, didst give
This life we live--
Who feedest with blood and tears
The hungry years--
I make one prayer to Thee,
O Great God! grant it me.
Some day when summer shows
Her leaf, her rose,
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Old Dispensation
O THOU, who, high in heaven,
To man hast given
This clouded earthly life
All storm and strife,
Blasted with ice and fire,
Love and desire,
Filled with dead faith, and love
That change is master of--
O Thou, who mightest have given
To all Thy heaven,
But who, instead, didst give
This life we live--
Who feedest with blood and tears
The hungry years--
I make one prayer to Thee,
O Great God! grant it me.
Some day when summer shows
Her leaf, her rose,
[...] Read more
poem by Edith Nesbit
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By Faith With Thanksgiving
LOVE is no bird that nests and flies,
No rose that buds and blooms and dies,
No star that shines and disappears,
No fire whose ashes strew the years:
Love is the god who lights the star,
Makes music of the lark's desire,
Love tells the rose what perfumes are,
And lights and feeds the deathless fire.
Love is no joy that dies apace
With the delight of dear embrace--
Love is no feast of wine and bread,
Red-vintaged and gold-harvested:
Love is the god whose touch divine
On hands that clung and lips that kissed,
Has turned life's common bread and wine
Into the Holy Eucharist.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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