Explore "The Onlooker" by Edith Nesbit on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If I could make a pillow for your head, / Soft, pleasant, filled with every pretty thought; / If I could lay a carpet where you tread / Of all my life's most radiant fancies wrought, / And spread my love as canopy above you, / Your sleep, your steps should know how much I love you.
But -- as life goes, to the old sorry tune -- / I stand apart, I see thorns wound your feet, / Your sleeping eyes resenting sun and moon, / Your head lie restless on a breast unmeet -- / And say no word, and suffer without moan, / Lest you should guess how much you are alone.