The Offering

What will you give me for this heart of mine,
No heart of gold, and yet my dearest treasure?
It has its graces, it can ache and pine,

And beat true time to your sweet voice's measure;
It bears your name, it lives but for your pleasure:
What will you give me for this heart I bring,
That holds my life, my joy, my everything?

How can I ask a price, when all my prayer
Is that, without return, you will but take it,
Feed it with hope, or starve it to despair,

Keep it to play with, mock it, crush it, break it,
And, if your will lies there, at last forsake it?
Its epitaph shall voice its deathless pride:
'She held me in her hands until I died.'

poem by Edith Nesbit
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A Dirge

LET Summer go
To other gardens; here we have no need of her.
She smiles and beckons, but we take no heed of her,
Who love not Summer, but bare boughs and snow,

Set the snow free
To choke the insolent triumph of the year,
With birds that sing as though he still were here,
And flowers that blow as if he still could see.

Let the rose die--
What ailed the rose to blow? she is not dear to us,
Nor all the summer pageant that draws near to us;
Let it be over soon, let it go by!

Let winter come,
With the wild mourning of the wind-tossed boughs

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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Forest Pool

LEAN down and see your little face
Reflected in the forest pool,
Tall foxgloves grow about the place,
Forget-me-nots grow green and cool.
Look deep and see the naiad rise
To meet the sunshine of your eyes.

Lean down and see how you are fair,
How gold your hair, your mouth how red;
See the leaves dance about your hair
The wind has left unfilleted.
What naiad of them can compare
With you for good and dear and fair?

Ah! look no more--the water stirs,
The naiad weeps your face to see,
Your beauty is more rare than hers,
And you are more beloved than she.

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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Enchanted Garden

OH, what a garden it was, living gold, living green,
Full of enchantments like spices embalming the air,
There, where you fled and I followed--you ever unseen,
Yet each glad pulse of me cried to my heart, 'She is there!'

Roses and lilies and lilies and roses again,
Tangle of leaves and white magic of blossoming trees,
Sunlight that lay where, last moment, your footstep had lain--
Was not the garden enchanted that proffered me these?

Ah, what a garden it is since I caught you at last--
Scattered the magic and shattered the spell with a kiss:
Wintry and dreary and cold with the wind of the past,
Ah that a garden enchanted should wither to this!

poem by Edith Nesbit
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Inspiration

I WANDERED in the enchanted wood,
And as I wandered there, I sang
A song I never understood,
Though sweet the music rang.

I held a lily white and fair,
Its perfume was a song divine,
A song like moonlight and clear air,
No rose-hued cloud like mine.

Beneath pale moon and wind-winged skies
My lips were dumb as one drew near,
Folded warm wings across my eyes
And whispered in my ear.

He left a flame-flower in my hand,
And bade me sing as heretofore
The song I could not understand;
But I can sing no more.

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poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Better Part

THERE'S a grey old church on a wind-swept hill
Where three bent yew trees cower,
The gipsy roses grow there still,
And the thyme and Saint John's gold flower,
The pale blue violets that love the chalk
Cling light round the lichened stone,
And starlings chatter and grey owls talk
In the belfry o' nights alone.

It's a thousand leagues and a thousand years
From the brick-built, gas-lit town
To the little church where the wild thyme hears
The bees and the breeze of the down.
The town is crowded and hard and rough;
Let those fight in its press who will--
But the little churchyard is quiet enough,
And there's room in the churchyard still.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Maiden's Prayer

SPRING, pretty Spring, what treasure do you bring to me?
Green grass and buttercups, cherry-bloom and may?
Sunshine to be glad with me, and little birds to sing to me?
Warm nests to call me along the woodland way?

Spring, happy Spring, what wonder will you do for me?
Light the tulip lanterns, and set the furze a-fire?
Fill your sky with sails of cloud on waves of living blue for me?
Show me green cornfields and budding of the briar?

Spring, darling Spring, my days will not return to me,
You who see them fleeting, you, all time above,
You who move the whole world's heart, ah move one heart to turn to me,
--Bring me a lover, and teach me how to love!

poem by Edith Nesbit
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Parting

WHEN hides the sun behind a bank of cloud,
Though well we know the sun is shining still,
No less the shadow falls on down and hill,
And the bright hues grow dull as brows grief-bowed.
So, when thou goest from me into the crowd,
Though well I know thy love through good and ill
Shines steadfastly, thy going seems to fill
The world with shade--turn sunshine to a shroud.

But when through clouds the sun returns to bless
Hill, field, and wood with his divine caress,
Ah, how the colours start to life again!
So after absence, when thou comest back
Bright grows the whole thought-world that was so black,
And my heart sings to feel the sunshine then.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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Song Of Long Ago

LONG ago, long ago,
When the hawthorn buds were pearly
And the birds sang, late and early,
All the songs that lovers know,
How we lingered in the lane,
Kissed and parted, kissed again,
Parted, laggard foot and slow!
What a pretty world we knew
Dressed in moonlight, dreams and dew,
Long ago, my first sweet sweetheart,
Long ago!

Long ago, long ago,
When the wind was on the river
Where the lights and shadows shiver,
And the streets were all aglow.
In the gaudy gas-lit street
We two parted, sweet, my sweet,
And the crowd went to and fro,
And your veil was wet with tears

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poem by Edith Nesbit
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Too Late

WHEN Love, sweet Love, was tangled in my snare
I clipped his wings, and dressed his cage with flowers,
Made him my little joy for little hours,
And fed him when I had a song to spare.
And then I saw how good life's good things were,
The kingdoms and the glories and the powers.
Flowers grew in sheaves and stars were shed in showers,
And, when the great things wearied, Love was there.

But when, within his cage, one winter day
I found him lying still with folded wings,
No longer fluttering, eager to be fed--
Kingdoms and powers and glories passed away,
And of life's countless, precious, priceless things
Nothing was left but Love--and Love was dead!

poem by Edith Nesbit
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