Edith (Nesbit) Bland (1858-1924). Miscellaneous Poems. II. A Tragedy (I). Alfred H. Miles, ed. 1907. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

Miscellaneous Poems.
II. A Tragedy (I)

By Edith (Nesbit) Bland (1858–1924)


AMONG his books he sits all day
To think and read and write;
He does not smell the new-mown hay
The roses red and white.

I walk among them all alone,	5
His silly stupid wife;
The world seems tasteless, dead and done—
An empty thing is life.

At night his window casts a square
Of light upon the lawn;	10
I sometimes walk and watch it there
Until the chill of dawn.

I have no brain to understand
The books he loves to read;
I only have a heart and hand	15
He does not seem to need.

He calls me “Child”—lays on my hair
Thin fingers, cold and mild;
Oh! God of Love, who answers prayer,
I wish I were a child!	20

And no one sees and no one knows
(He least would know or see)
That ere love gathers next year’s rose
Death will have gathered me;

And on my grave will bindweed pink	25
And round-faced daisies grow;
He still will read and write and think,
And never, never know!