Many Voices: Poems

Transcribed from the 1922 Hutchinson and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
POEMS: By E. NESBIT
Author of “ The Incredible Honeymoon ,” etc.
LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO. :: PATERNOSTER ROW ::
To my dear Daughter in law and Daughter in love, GERTRUDE BLAND I, E. Nesbit, dedicate this book
Jesson St. Mary’s , Romney , 1922.
The grass was gray with the moonlit dew, The stones were white as I came through; I came down the path by the thirteen yews, Through the blocks of shade that the moonlight hews. And when I came to the high lych-gate I waited awhile where the corpses wait; Then I came down the road where the moonlight lay Like the fallen ghost of the light of day.
The bats shrieked high in their zigzag flight, The owls’ spread wings were quiet and white, The wind and the poplar gave sigh for sigh, And all about were the rustling shy Little live creatures that love the night— Little wild creatures timid and free. I passed, and they were not afraid of me.
It was over the meadow and down the lane The way to come to my house again: Through the wood where the lovers talk, And the ghosts, they say, get leave to walk. I wore the clothes that we all must wear, And no one saw me walking there, No one saw my pale feet pass By my garden path to my garden grass. My garden was hung with the veil of spring— Plum-tree and pear-tree blossoming; It lay in the moon’s cold sheet of light In garlands and silence, wondrous and white As a dead bride decked for her burying.
Then I saw the face of my house Held close in the arms of the blossomed boughs: I leaned my face to the window bright To feel if the heart of my house beat right. The firelight hung it with fitful gold; It was warm as the house of the dead is cold. I saw the settles, the candles tall, The black-faced presses against the wall, Polished beechwood and shining brass, The gleam of china, the glitter of glass, All the little things that were home to me— Everything as it used to be.