This busy, dusty wind that blows
Along the cruel streets,
Right to the heart of violets goes,
And robs them of their sweets.
And as along the cruel street
The keen wind robs the flowers,
So the cold kindness that we meet
Blights these poor hearts of ours.
But if you tend with warmth, you know,
Your violets, they give
Sweet scent again, as if to show
How glad they are to live.
We think if some one loved us too
Our hearts would break to prove
By all that we could say or do,
How glad we were to love!
_E. Nesbit._
[Illustration]
Dream footsteps wandering past us in our sleep,
A restless presence stirring with the light,
The cry of waters where the snow was white,
A violet's whisper where dead leaves lay deep;
The dim wood's music makes a sudden leap,
Broken notes, blending in a wild delight,
And lo! the whole world changes in our sight.
Promise is ended--we must turn and reap
Fulfilment, for the Spring with all her wealth
Is with us, and compels us to her will.
Yet if the sun-dawn we should shun by stealth
Yearning for shadows and the darkened hours,
Sweet Lord, be pitiful, remembering still
One lieth low beneath the budding flowers.
_Caris Brooke._
[Illustration]
Never a hand on the cottage door
To call me forth in the evening light,
My days grow old, and I watch no more
The cowslips gold and the may-buds white.
Primroses nestle beneath the hedge
Where we kissed and wept and said good-bye--
For twenty years I have watched them bud,
For twenty years I have seen them die.
Yet now that the Spring once more has turned
The sea to silver, the earth to gold,
I shall watch no more from the primrose lane,
Where I waited and watched in the days of old.
Yet the children weave me their daisy chains,
The woodland music is sweet and clear,
Though the footsteps have wandered beyond recall,
That I watched and waited so long to hear!
_Caris Brooke._
[Illustration]
The swans along the water glide,
Unfettered and yet side by side--
So should true lovers ever be,
Together ever--ever free.
A chain upon the white swan's neck,
What were it good for--save to break?
And swans who wear and break a chain
Swim never side by side again.
[Illustration]
My best beloved, the Spring is fair,
The woods are green and life is good,
Come out with me and let us tread
By field and fold and sweet wet wood--
The wind-flower blanches all the copse,
With hyacinth the hedge is blue,
And every wakened leaf is fair,
But not so fair as you!
The black-birds sing on hazel boughs
Beneath the overarching trees,
The cuckoo's distant song is borne
Across the meadow by the breeze,
The thrush's song is sweetest far
But saddens as the hours go by.
You hear? The nightingale's in love,
But not so much as I!
_E. Nesbit._
[Illustration]
Girdled with gold my little lady's bower
Stands at the portals of a world in flower,
And down her ways the changing blossoms mark
How the Spring grows each day from dawn to dark.
[Illustration]
When forth she moves, her dainty foot is set,
On cowslip, hyacinth and violet,
And all day long the woodland minstrels sing
Changes of measure for her pleasuring.
And all night long a passionate music stirs
Without her walls--the darkened belt of firs;
Hushed in their waving boughs the low winds brood,
Murmuring the sea's song for an interlude.
_Caris Brooke._
[Illustration]
The last bright relic of the moon's full gold
Burns on the swiftly flowing river's breast;
No sound but restless dipping of strong oars
To break the charm of nature's perfect rest.
Far off the town's faint mingled clamours stir,
And through the silence of the nearer light
The incense of the evening mist floats up--
The day's last lingering love-word to the night.
A sudden shiver of regretful change
Sighs through the whispering boughs that overhead
Sway in the wind's breath: down the red sun dips,
And in the twilight's arms the day lies dead.
Then rain, and after, moonshine cold and fair,
And scent of earth, sweet with the evening rain,
And slow soft speech beneath the rain-washed trees,
Ah, that such things should never come again!
[Illustration]
Oh listening trees, where are the words we spoke?
Where are our sighs, wind whom those sighs caressed?
Oh! what a fate is ours, too swift, too sad,
If such an hour goes by with all the rest!
_E. Nesbit._
[Illustration]
What o'clock is it, children dear?
Ask of the dandelions here!
Blow, blow, blow, and away they go--
But they do not tell us the time you know!
Say, what month is it, children dear?
We think it is August because we hear
The swing of the sickle, restless and slow,
And that's a sign of the month, you know.
[Illustration]
Where are you going, children dear?
Where the lane winds deep and the stream runs clear--
There are plenty of beautiful ways to go--
But only one way that two only know.
Where are _we_ going, children dear?
To a beautiful country that's very near,
Hand in hand is the way to go
Up into fairyland you know.
_E. Nesbit._
[Illustration]