POEM: WHITE MAGIC

By Edith Nesbit

This is the room to which she came,

And Spring itself came with her;

She stirred the fire of life to flame,

She called all music hither.

Her glance upon the lean white walls

Hung them with cloth of splendour,

And still the rose she dropped recalls

The graces that attend her.

The same poor room, so dull and bare

Before, in consecration,

She breathed upon its common air

The true transfiguration...?

This room the same to which she came

For one immortal minute? -

How can it ever be the same

Since she has once been in it!