The Rainbow and the Rose

E. Nesbit

The Rainbow and the Rose

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  The way to set a line or snare;  But not the way to truss a chick,  To fry a fish, or baste a roast,  Nor how to tell, when folks are sick,  What kind of herb will ease them most!  Forgetting seems such silly waste!  I know so many little things,  And now the Angels will make haste  To dust it all away with wings!  O God, you made me like to know,  You kept the things straight in my head,  Please God, if you can make it so,  Let me know something when I'm dead.THE CONFESSION  I HAVEN'T always acted good:  I've taken things not meant for me;  Not other people's drink and food,  But things they never seemed to see.  I haven't done the way I ought  If all they say in church is true,  But all I've had I've fairly bought,  And paid for pretty heavy too.  For days and weeks are very long  If you get nothing new and bright,  And if you never do no wrong  Somehow you never do no right.  The chap that daresent go a yard  For fear the path should lead astray  May be a saint—though that seems hard,  But he's no traveller, any way.  Some things I can't be sorry for,  The things that silly people hate:  But some I did I do deplore,  I knew, inside, they wasn't straight.  And when my last account is filed,  And stuck-up angels stop their song,  I'll ask God's pardon like a child  For what I really knew was wrong.  If you've a child, you'd rather see  A bit of temper, off and on,  A greedy grab, a silly spree—  And then a brave thing said or done  Than hear your boy whine all day long  About the things he musn't do:  Just doing nothing, right or wrong:  And God may feel the same as you.  For God's our Father, so they say,  He made His laws and He made me;  He'll understand about the way  Me and His laws could not agree.  He might say, "You're worth more, My son,  Than all My laws since law began.  Take good with bad—here's something done—  And I'm your God, and you're My man."WORK  WHEN I am busying about,  Sewing on buttons, tapes, and strings,  Hanging the week's wet washing out  Or ironing the children's things,  Sweeping and dusting, cleaning grates,  Scrubbing the dresser or the floors,  Washing the greasy dinner plates,  Scouring the brasses on the doors—  I wonder what it's all about,  And when did people first begin  To keep the dirt and wornness out  And keep the wholesome comfort in:  How long it is since women bore  This round of wash and make and mend,  And what God makes us do it for  And whether it will ever end!  When God began to do His work  He made a new thing every day—  Even now He is not one to shirk,  But makes things, always some new way  He made the earth, and sky, and sun,  The creatures of the sea and wood,  And when his first week's work was done  He saw that it was very good.  But He—for all He worked so fast  To finish air, and wave, and shore,  Knew that this work of His would last  For ever and for evermore.  On Saturday night He was content,  He knew that Monday would not bring  Need for another firmament,  Another set of everything.  But though my work is easier far  Than making sky and sea and sun,  It's harder than God's labours are,  Because my work is never done.  I sweep and churn, save and contrive,  I bake and brew, I don't complain,  But every Monday morning I've  Last Monday's work to do again.  I'm good at work—I work away;  Always the same my work must go;  The flowers grow different every day,  That's why I like to see them grow.  If, up in Heaven, God understood  He'd let me for my Paradise  Make all things new and very good  And never make the same thing twice!THE JILTED LOVER TO HIS MOTHER  You needn't pray for me, old lady, I don't want no one's prayer,  I'm fit and jolly as ever I was—you needn't think I care.  When I go whistling down the road, when the warm night is falling,  She needn't think I'm whistling her, it's another girl I'm calling.  If I pass her house a dozen times, or fifty times a day,  She needn't think I think of her, my work lies out that way.  If they should tell her I've grown thin (for that is what they've told me)  This cursed weather counts for that, and not the girl who sold me.  And if they say I'm off my feed I still can tip a can;  If I get drunk what's that to her? I am not her young man.  I know I've had a lucky let-off—she ain't no class, she ain't,  For all she looked like a bush o' roses and talked like a story book saint.  I never give a thought to her. Don't worry your old head,  I've quite forgot her pretty ways and the cruel things she said,  There's lots of other gals to be had as any chap can see,  So you cheer up, you've got no call to go and pray for me.  But all the same, if you want to pray, you'd best pray God take care of them,  For if I catch them two together, by hell! I'll swing for the pair of them.THE WILL TO LIVE  SINCE Faith is a veil that has nothing behind it,  And Hope wanders lost where no mortal can find it,  Since Love is a mirror we break in a minute  In snatching the image our soul has cast in it,  What is the use of the Summers and Springs,  The wave of the woods and the waft of the wings—  Since all means nothing, and good things and ill  Make madness,—a mirage tormenting us still?  Since all the fighting, the ardent endeavour,  The heart cast bleeding to feed the Ideal,  Are vain, vain, vain, and the one thing real  Is that all's vain, for ever and ever;  Why then, be a man and stand back from the strife,  Fall by the sword, but keep out of the snare;  Will but to be—and be willing to bear  All that the gods may lay on your of life!  In the far East, where light ever dawns first,  There has man learned how the Fates may be cheated,  How by our craft may their strength be defeated,  Though all our best be no match for their worst!  Kill the desire that they set in your bosom,  Long not for fruit when you gaze on the blossom,  Dream not of flowers when you gaze on the bud,  Kill all the rebels that shout in your blood.  Sorrow and sickness, disease and decay—  These toll the hours of Life's desolate day;  Hopes unfulfilled and forbidden delight  These are the dreams of Life's treacherous night.  So let me image an infinite peace  Touched with no joy but the ease of release.  Out of the eddies I climb and I cease  Keeping, in change for this man's soul of me,  Something which, by the eternal decree,  Is as like Nothing as Something can be!  Not to desire, to admit, to adore,  Casting the robe of the soul that you wore  Just as the soul casts the body's robe down.  This is man's destiny, this is man's crown.  This is the splendour, the end of the feast;  This is the light of the Star in the East.  So, Silence reconciles Life's jarring phrases  Far in the future, austere and august:  Meanwhile, the buds of the poplars are falling,  Spring's on the lawn, and a little voice calling:  "Daddy, come out! Daddy darling, you must!  Daddy come out and help Molly pick daisies!"  And, since one's here, and the Spring's in the garden  (How many lives hence will that thought earn pardon?)  Since one's a man and man's heart is insistent,  And, since Nirvana is doubtful and distant,  Though life's a hard road and thorny to travel—  Stones in the borders and grass on the gravel,  Still there's the wisdom that wise men call folly,  Still one can go and pick daisies with Molly!THE BEATIFIC VISION  OH God! if I do my duty  And walk in the thorny way,  Will you pay me with heavens of beauty,  Millions of lives away?  Will you give me the music of heaven,  And the joy that none understands,  In place of what life would have given  If I had held out my hands?  I have lived in a narrow prison,  I have writhed 'neath a bitter creed,  And I dare to say that no heaven can pay  The renounced dream and deed,  But when my life's portal closes,  If you have no heaven to spare  God! give me a garden of roses,  And some one to walk with there.

II

MUMMY WHEAT  LAID close to Death, these many thousand years,  In this small seed Life hid herself and smiled;  So well she hid, Death was at least beguiled,  Set free the grain—and lo! the sevenfold ears!  Warmed by the sun, wooed by the wind's soft word,  Under blue canopy they hold their state:  For this, ah, was it not worth while to wait  Through all the centuries of hope deferred?  What could they know who laid the seed with Death  Of this Divine fruition fixed and planned?  Love—since Life parts us—lend my hand your hand  And look with me into the eyes of faith.  For here between your hand and mine there lies  A little seed we trust to Death to keep  Through unimagined centuries of sleep  Until the day when Life shall bid it rise.  Our harvest waits us. Who knows where or how,  What worlds away, wrapped in what coil of pain?  But Life shall bid us pluck gold sevenfold grain  Grown from the love she bids us bury now.THE BEECH TREE  MY beautiful beech, your smooth grey coat is trimmed  With letters. Once, each stood for all things dear  To foolish lovers, dead this many a year,  Whose lamp of lighted love so soon was dimmed.  You have seen them come and go,  And heard their kisses and vows  Under your boughs,  The pitiful vows they swore,  Have seen their poor tears flow,  Have seen them part; to meet, and to return, no more!  And in old winters, through your branches bare,  The north wind drove the blue home-scented smoke  That on the glowing Christmas hearth awoke  Where the old logs, with eager flicker and flare,  Sang their low crackling song  Of peace and of good will.  The old song is still,  The old voices have died away,  The hearth has been cold so long,  And the bright faces dimmed and covered up with clay.  And summer after summer wakes to glow  The ordered pleasance with the clipped box-hedge,  The drooping lilac by the old moat's edge,  The roses, that throw you kisses from below,  The orchard pink and white,  The sedge's whispered words,  The nesting birds,  All these return to revel round your feet.  And in the untroubled night  The nightingale still sings, the jasmine still is sweet.  My beautiful beech, I carve upon you here  The master-letter which begins her name  Through whom, to me, the royal summer came,  And nightingale and rose, and all things dear.  And, in some far-off time,  I shall come here, weary and old,  When the hearth in my heart is cold  And the birds that nest there flown;  I will remember this summer in all its prime  And say, "There was a day—  Thank God, the Giver, an unforgotten day,  When I walked here, not alone,  —O God of pity and sorrow, not alone!"IN ABSENCE  WAKE, do you wake in the dark in the strange far place,  Window and door not set like the ones we knew,  Leaning your face through the dark for another face,  Stretching your arms to the arms that are far from you,  Even as I, through the depth of this darkness, do?  Sleep, do you sleep in the house in the lonely land?  In the lonely room do you hear no steps draw near?  Do you miss in the darkness the hand that implores your hand,  See through the darkness your last dream disappear,  And weep, as I weep, in the outer darkness here?  Dream, do you dream? Nay, never a dream will stay,  Never a phantom is fond, or a vision kind.  Your dreams elude you and fly through the dark my way,  My dreams fly forth to you whom they may not find;  And we in the darkness weep, we weep and are left behind.SILENCE  So silent is the world to-night  The lamp gives silence out like light,  The latticed windows open wide  Show silence, like the night, outside:  The nightingale's faint song draws near  Like musical silence to mine ear.  The empty house calls not to me,  "Here, but for fate, were thou and she—"  Its gibe for once is checked. To-night  Silence is queen in grief's despite,  And even the longing of my soul  Is silent 'neath this hour's control.RAISON D'ETRE  O WEARY night, O weary day,  When heart's delight is far away!  What is the day? A frame of blue  The vacant-glaring sun grins through.  What is the night? A sable veil  Through which the moon peers tired and pale.  O weary day! O weary night!  How far away is heart's delight!  Love hung the sun in his high place  To give me light to see her face,  And love spread out the veil of night  To hide us two from all men's sight.  O kindly night, O pleasant day,  Your use is gone—why should ye stay?  My heart's delight is far away,  O weary night, O weary day.THE ONLOOKER  If I could make a pillow for your head,  Soft, pleasant, filled with every pretty thought;  If I could lay a carpet where you tread  Of all my life's most radiant fancies wrought,  And spread my love as canopy above you,  Your sleep, your steps should know how much I love you.  But—as life goes, to the old sorry tune—  I stand apart, I see thorns wound your feet,  Your sleeping eyes resenting sun and moon,  Your head lie restless on a breast unmeet—  And say no word, and suffer without moan,  Lest you should guess how much you are alone.THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE  I PLUCKED the blossoms of delight  In many a wood and many a field,  I made a garland fair and bright  As any gardens yield.  But when I sought the living tree  To make new earth and Heaven new,  I found—alas for you and me—  Its roots were set in you.  Oh, dear my garden, where the fruit  Of lovely knowledge sweetly springs,  How jealously you guard the root  Of all enlightening things!AT PARTING  AND you could leave me now—  After the first remembered whispered vow  Which sings for ever and ever in my ears—  The vow which God among His Angels hears—  After the long-drawn years,  The slow hard tears,  Could break new ground, and wake  A new strange garden to blossom for your sake,  And leave me here alone,  In the old garden that was once our own?  How should I learn to bear  Our garden's pleasant ways and pleasant air,  Her flowers, her fruits, her lily, her rose and thorn,  When only in a picture these appear—  These, once alive, and always over-dear?  Ah—think again: the rose you used to wear  Must still be more than other roses be  The flower of flowers. Ah, pity, pity me!  For in my acres is no plot of ground  Whereon could any garden site be found,  I have but little skill  To water weed and till  And make the desert blossom like the rose;  Yet our old garden knows  If I have loved its ways and walks and kept  The garden watered, and the pleasance swept.  Yet—if you must—go now:  Go, with my blessing filling both your hands,  And, mid the desert sands  Which life drifts deep round every garden wall,  Make your new festival  Of bud and blossom—red rose and green leaf.  No blight born of my grief  Shall touch your garden, love; but my heart's prayer  Shall draw down blessings on you from the air,  And all we learned of leaf and plant and tree  Shall serve you when you walk no more with me  In garden ways; and when with her you tread  The pleasant ways with blossoms overhead  And when she asks, "How did you come to know  The secrets of the ways these green things grow?"  Then you will answer—and I, please God, hear,  "I had another garden once, my dear".SONG  I HEAR the waves to-night  Piteously calling, calling  Though the light  Of the kind moon is falling,  Like kisses, on the sea  That calls for sunshine, dear, as my soul calls for thee.  I see the sea lie gray  Wrinkling her brows in sorrow,  Hear her say:—  "Bright love of yesterday, return to-morrow,  Sun, I am thine, am thine!"  Oh sea, thy love will come again, but what of mine?RENUNCIATION  ROSE of the desert of my heart,  Moon of the night that is my soul,  Thou can'st not know how sweet thou art,  Nor what wild tides thy beams control.  For all thy heart a garden is,  Thy soul is like a dawn of May.  And garden and dawn might both be his,  Who from them both must turn away.  Oh, garden of the Spring's delight!  Oh, dewy dawn of perfect noon!  I will not pluck thy roses white  Or warm thy May-time into June.  I can but bless thee, moon and rose,  And journey far and very far  To where the night no moonbeam shows,  To where no happy roses are!

III

THE VEIL OF MAYA  SWEET, I have loved before. I know  This longing that invades my days;  This shape that haunts life's busy ways  I know since long and long ago.  This starry mystery of delight  That floats across my eager eyes,  This pain that makes earth Paradise,  These magic songs of day and night—  I know them for the things they are:  A passing pain, a longing fleet,  A shape that soon I shall not meet,  A fading dream of veil and star.  Yet, even as my lips proclaim  The wisdom that the years have lent,  Your absence is joy's banishment,  And life's one music is your name.  I love you to my heart's hid core:  Those other loves? how should one learn  From marshlights how the great fires burn?  Ah, no! I never loved before!SONG  THE sunshine of your presence lies  On the glad garden of my heart  And bids the leaves of silence part  To show the flowers to your dear eyes,  And flower on flower blooms there and dies  And still new buds awakened spring,  For sunshine makes the garden wise,  To know the time for blossoming.  Night is no time for blossoming,  Your garden then dreams otherwise,  Of vanished Summer, vanished Spring,  And how the dearest flower first dies.  Yet from your ministering eyes  Though night hath drawn me far apart  On the still garden of my heart  The moonlight of your memory lies.TO VERA, WHO ASKED A SONG  IF I only had time!  I could make you a rhyme.  But my time is kept flying  By smiling and sighing  And living and dying for you.  The song-seed, I sow it,  I water and hoe it,  But never can grow it.  Ah, traitress, you know it!  What is a poor poet to do?  Ah, let me take breath!  I am harried to death  By the loves and the graces  That crowd where your face is  That lurk in your laces and throng.  Call them off for a minute,  Once let me begin it  The devil is in it  If I can not spin it  As sweet as a linnet, your song!THE POET TO HIS LOVE  ALL the flight of thoughts here, shy, bold, scared, intrusive,  Fluttering in the sun, between the green and blue,  Wheeling, whirling, poising, lovely and elusive,  How to cage the flying thoughts, my winged delight, for you?  Set a springe of rhyme, and hope to catch them in it?  Strew my love as grain to lure them to the snare?  Watch the hours built up, slow minute piled on minute?  Still the wide sky guards their flight, and still the cage is bare.  Gleam of hovering feathers, brushing me to flout me!  Wings, be weary! Rest! Who loves you more than I?  Caught? Oh fluttering pinions whitening air about me!  Rustling wings, and distant flight, and empty cage and sky!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!SONG  "LOVE me little, love me long,"  Is the burden of my song,  And if nothing more may be  Little shall suffice for me.  But if you could crown with flowers  All my radiant, festal hours,  And console for hours of sorrow  Love me more with each to-morrow.  And if you would turn my days  To one splendid hymn of praise,  And set hopes like stars above me  Love me much, and always love me!THE MAGIC FLOWER  THROUGH many days and many days  The seed of love lay hidden close;  We walked the dusty tiresome ways  Where never a leaf or blossom grows.  And in the darkness, all the while,  The little seed its heart uncurled,  And we by many a weary mile  Travelled towards it, round the world.  To the hid centre of the maze  At last we came, and there we found—  O happy day, O day of days!  —Twin seed-leaves breaking holy ground.  We dropped life's joys, a garnered sheaf,  And spell-bound watched, still hour by hour,  Magic on magic, leaf by leaf,  The unfolding of our love's white flower.LA DERNIERE ROBE DE SOI  OH, silken gown, all pink and pretty,  Bought, quite a bargain, in the City,  Your ill-trained soul full false has played me—  No Paris gown would have betrayed me.  You knew, my pretty silken treasure,  I must not wed for love or pleasure,  But for a settlement and title;  Yet you encouraged his recital!  He said—oh, faithless gown, you listened  While on your sheen two tear drops glistened—  He said . . . let love to music set it,  I'll never speak it—nor forget it!  "No, no!" I cried, I tried to save you—  False gown, you showed the tears I gave you!  You looked discreet when first I found you.  How could you let his arm go round you?  You darling dress—I'll smooth your creases,  I'll wear you till you drop to pieces;  But poor men's wives wear cotton only—  Dear gown—I hope you won't feel lonely!THE LEAST POSSIBLE  DEAR goddess of the shining shrine  Where all my votive tapers burn,  Where every gold-embroidered thought  And all my flowers of life are brought  —With many, alas! that are not mine—  What will you give me in return?  The bow in Bond Street—in the Park  The smile all worship on your lips,  The courteous word at dinner—dance—  But never a blush—a conscious glance;  At most, at Henley, in the dark,  Your fleet mistaken finger-tips?  Ah, just for once, once only, be  An altar-server—stoop and set me  Upon the altar richly wrought  Of your most secret flower-sweet thought:  One nightlight's flicker burn for me  Before you sleep and quite forget me.EN TOUT CAS  WHEN I am glad I need your eyes  To be the stars of Paradise;  Your lips to be the seal of all  The joy life grants, and dreams recall;  Your hand, to lie my hands between  What time we walk the garden green.  But most in grief I need your face  To lean to mine in the desert place;  Your lips to mock the evil years,  To sweeten me my cup of tears,  Your eyes to shine, in cloud's despite,  Your hands to hold mine through the night.APPEAL  Daphnis dearest, wherefore weave me  Webs of lies lest truth should grieve me?  I could pardon much, believe me:  Dower me, Daphnis, or bereave me,  Kill me, kill me, love me, leave me—  Damn me, dear, but don't deceive me!ST. VALENTINE'S DAY  THE South is a dream of flowers  With a jewel for sky and sea,  Rose-crowns for the dancing hours,  Gold fruits upon every tree;  But cold from the North  The wind blows forth  That blows my love to me.  The stars in the South are gold  Like lamps between sky and sea;  The flowers that the forests hold  Like stars between tree and tree;  But little and white  Is the pale moon's light  That lights my love to me.  In the South the orange grove  Makes dusk by the dusky sea,  White palaces wrought for love  Gleam white between tree and tree,  But under bare boughs  Is the little house  Warm-lit for my love and me.CHAGRIN D'AMOUR  IF Love and I were all alone  I might forget to grieve,  And for his pleasure and my own  Might happier garlands weave;  But you sit there, and watch us wear  The mourning wreaths you wove:  And while such mocking eyes you bear  I am not friends with Love.  Withdraw those cruel eyes, and let  Me search the garden through  That I may weave, ere Love be set,  The wreath of Love for you;  Till you, whom Love so well adorns,  Its hidden thorns discover,  And know at last what crown of thorns  It was you gave your lover.BRIDAL EVE  GOOD-NIGHT, my Heart, my Heart, good-night—  Oh, good and dear and fair,  With lips of life and eyes of light  And roses in your hair.  To-morrow brings the other crown,  The orange blossoms, Sweet,  And then the rose will be cast down  With lilies at your feet.  But in your soul a garden stands  Where fair the white rose blows—  God, teach my foolish clumsy hands  The way to tend my rose.  That in the white-rose garden still  The lily may bloom fair  God help my heart and soul and will  To keep the lily there.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!FROM THE ITALIAN  AS a little child whom his mother has chidden,  Wrecked in the dark in a storm of weeping,  Sleeps with his tear-stained eyes closed hidden  And, with fists clenched, sobs still in his sleeping,  So in my breast sleeps Love, O white lady,  What does he care though the rest are playing,  With rattles and drums in the woodlands shady,  Happy children, whom Joy takes maying!  Ah, do not wake him, lest you should hear him  Scolding the others, breaking their rattles,  Smashing their drums, when their play comes near him—  Love who, for me, is a god of battles!