Magic / Edith Nesbit

What was the spell she wove for me?

Life was a common useful thing,

An eligible building site

To hold a house to shelter me.

There were no woodlands whispering;

No unimagined dreams at night

About that house had folded wing,

Disordering my life for me.

I was so safe until she came

With starry secrets in her eyes,

And on her lips the word of power.

- Like to the moon of May she came,

That makes men mad who were born wise -

Within her hand the only flower

Man ever plucked from Paradise;

So to my half-built house she came.

She turned my useful plot of land

Into a garden wild and fair,

Where stars in garlands hung like flowers:

A moonlit, lonely, lovely land.

Dim groves and glimmering fountains there

Embraced a secret bower of bowers,

And in its rose-ringed heart we were

Alone in that enchanted land.

What was the spell I wove for her,

Her mad dear magic to undo?

The red rose dies, the white rose dies,

The garden spits me forth with her

On the old suburban road I knew.

My house is gone, and by my side

A stranger stands with angry eyes

And lips that swear I ruined her.