Explore "Retro Sathanas" by Edith Nesbit on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"REFUSE, refrain: for this is not the love / The Annunciation Angel warned you of; / This is the little candle, not the sun; / It burns, but will not warm, unhappy one!"
"But ah! suppose the sun should never shine, / Then what an anguish of regret were mine / To know that even from this I turned away! / Candles may serve, if there should be no day."
"Nay, better to go cold your whole life long / Than do the sun, than do your soul such wrong: / And if the sun shine not, be life's the blame / And yours the pride, who scorned the meaner flame. "