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,

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;

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

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!

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

And round-faced daisies grow;

He still will read and write and think,

And never, never know!