Read "The Touchstone" by Edith Nesbit online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
THERE was a garden, very strange and fair / With all the roses summer never brings.
The snowy blossom of immortal Springs / Lighted its boughs, and I, even I, was there.
There were new heavens, and the earth was new, / And still I told my heart the dream was true.
But when the sun stood still, and Time went out / Like a blown candle-when she came to me / Under the bride-veil of the blossomed tree, / Chill through the garden blew the winds of doubt, / And when, with starry eyes, and lips too near, / She leaned to me, my heart knew what to fear.
"It is no dream," she said. "What dream had stayed / So long? It is the blessed isle that lies / Between the tides of twin eternities.
It is our island; do not be afraid! " / Then, then at last my heart was well deceived; / I hid my eyes; I trembled and believed.
Her real presence sanctified my faith, / Her very voice my restless fears beguiled, / And it was Life that clasped me when she smiled, / But when she said "I love you! " it was Death.
That, that at least could neither be nor seem- / Oh, then, indeed, I knew it was a dream!