The Rainbow

  and the Rose

  E. Nesbit

  THE RAINBOW AND THE ROSE

  BY

  E. NESBIT

  1905

  TO IRIS AND ROSAMUND

  CONTENTS.

  I.

  THE THINGS THAT MATTER

  THE CONFESSION

  WORK

  THE JILTED LOVER

  THE WILL TO LIVE

  THE BEATIFIC VISION

  II.

  MUMMY WHEAT

  THE BEECH TREE

  IN ABSENCE

  SILENCE

  RAISON D’ETRE

  THE ONLOOKER

  THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

  AT PARTING

  SONG

  RENUNCIATION

  III.

  THE VEIL OF MAYA

  SONG

  TO VERA

  THE POET TO HIS LOVE

  THE MAIDEN’S PRAYER

  SONG

  THE MAGIC FLOWER

  LA DERNIERE ROBE DE SOIE

  THE LEAST POSSIBLE

  EN TOUT CAS

  APPEAL

  ST. VALENTINE’S DAY

  CHAGRIN D’AMOUR

  BRIDAL EVE

  LOVE AND LIFE

  FROM THE ITALIAN

  IV.

  “OUT OF THE FULNESS OF THE HEART”

  SUMMER SONG

  THE LOWER ROOM

  SONG

  MAY SONG

  V.

  TO IRIS

  TO A CHILD

  BIRTHDAY TALK FOR A CHILD

  TO ROSAMUND

  FROM THE TUSCAN

  MOTHER SONG: FROM THE PORTUGUESE

  VI.

  THE ISLAND

  POSSESSION

  ACCESSION

  THE DESTROYER

  THE EGOISTS

  THE WAY OF LOVE

  TO ONE WHO PLEADED FOR CANDOUR IN LOVE

  THE ENCHANTED GARDEN

  THE POOR MAN’S GUEST

  IN THE SHALLOWS

  “AND THE RAINS DESCENDED AND THE FLOODS CAME”

  THE STAR

  VII.

  THE PRODIGAL SON

  DESPAIR

  THE TEMPTATION

  SECOND NATURE

  DE PROFUNDIS

  VIII.

  AT THE GATE

  VIA AMORIS

  RETRO SATHANAS

  THE OLD DISPENSATION

  THE NEW DISPENSATION

  THE THREE KINGS

  IX.

  AFTER DEATH

  CHLOE

  INVOCATION

  THE LAST BETRAYAL

  A PRAYER FOR THE KING’S MAJESTY

  TRUE LOVE AND NEW LOVE

  DEATH

  IN MEMORY OF SARETTA DEAKIN

  A PARTING

  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.

  1

  The Rainbow and the Rose

  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.

  2

  The Rainbow and the Rose

  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.

  3

  The Rainbow and the Rose

  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. ”

  4

  The Rainbow and the Rose

  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.

  5

  The Rainbow and the Rose

  But though my work is easier far

  Than ma king 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!

  6

  The Rainbow and the Rose

  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.

  7

  The Rainbow and the Rose

  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!

  8

  The Rainbow and the Rose

  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!

  9

  The Rainbow and the Rose

  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.

  10

  The Rainbow and the Rose

  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.

  11

  The Rainbow and the Rose

  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.

 

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