The Rainbow and the Rose. Эдит Несбит

        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.

        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!

        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".

        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?

        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!

        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