Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti

by Christina Rossetti

  And ‘Do you dream of me?’ you said.

  My heart was dust that used to leap

  To you; I answered half asleep:

  ‘My pillow is damp, my sheets are red,

  There’s a leaden tester to my bed:

  Find you a warmer playfellow,

  A warmer pillow for your head,

  A kinder love to love than mine.’

  You wrung your hands; while I like lead

  Crushed downwards through the sodden earth:

  You smote your hands but not in mirth,

  And reeled but were not drunk with wine.

  For all night long I dreamed of you:

  I woke and prayed against my will,

  Then slept to dream of you again.

  At length I rose and knelt and prayed:

  I cannot write the words I said,

  My words were slow, my tears were few;

  But through the dark my silence spoke

  Like thunder. When this morning broke,

  My face was pinched, my hair was grey,

  And frozen blood was on the sill

  Where stifling in my struggle I lay.

  If now you saw me you would say:

  Where is the face I used to love?

  And I would answer: Gone before;

  It tarries veiled in paradise.

  When once the morning star shall rise,

  When earth with shadow flees away

  And we stand safe within the door,

  Then you shall lift the veil thereof.

  Look up, rise up: for far above

  Our palms are grown, our place is set;

  There we shall meet as once we met

  And love with old familiar love.

  UP-HILL

  Does the road wind up-hill all the way?

  Yes, to the very end.

  Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?

  From morn to night, my friend.

  But is there for the night a resting-place?

  A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.

  May not the darkness hide it from my face?

  You cannot miss that inn.

  Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?

  Those who have gone before.

  Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?

  They will not keep you standing at that door.

  Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?

  Of labour you shall find the sum.

  Will there be beds for me and all who seek?

  Yea, beds for all who come.

  THE PRINCE’S PROGRESS AND OTHER POEMS

  Published in 1866, this poetry collection was also illustrated by the poet’s brother Dante Gabriel, and the title poem is considered to be one of Rossetti’s most accomplished works. The Prince’s Progress is a long narrative poem that forms a sequel to Goblin Market and also concerns the theme of false expectations of love. The poem deals with philosophical issues related to betrayal in love, somewhat more mature in approach than in the previous collection. On its surface level the poem depicts a deserving Princess bride, who is betrayed by an inadequately devoted lover. Yet, as in the majority of Rossetti’s love poems, mutability lingers in the background of the narrative, impelling the characters’ reactions to their circumstances and preventing the fulfilment of love.

  The first edition

  CONTENTS

  THE PRINCE’S PROGRESS

  MAIDEN-SONG

  JESSIE CAMERON

  SPRING QUIET

  THE POOR GHOST

  A PORTRAIT

  DREAM-LOVE

  TWICE

  SONGS IN A CORNFIELD

  A YEAR’S WINDFALLS

  THE QUEEN OF HEARTS

  ONE DAY

  A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW

  LIGHT LOVE

  ON THE WING

  A RING POSY

  BEAUTY IS VAIN

  MAGGIE A LADY

  WHAT WOULD I GIVE?

  THE BOURNE

  SUMMER

  AUTUMN

  THE GHOST’S PETITION

  MEMORY

  A ROYAL PRINCESS

  SHALL I FORGET?

  VANITY OF VANITIES: AH, WOE IS ME FOR PLEASURE THAT IS VAIN

  L. E. L

  LIFE AND DEATH

  BIRD OR BEAST?

  EVE

  GROWN AND FLOWN

  A FARM WALK

  SOMEWHERE OR OTHER

  A CHILL

  CHILD’S TALK IN APRIL

  GONE FOR EVER

  THE INIQUITY OF THE FATHERS UPON THE CHILDREN

  BY THE SEA

  FROM SUNSET TO STAR RISE

  DAYS OF VANITY

  ONCE FOR ALL

  ENRICA, 1865

  AUTUMN VIOLETS

  A DIRGE

  THEY DESIRE A BETTER COUNTRY

  A GREEN CORNFIELD

  A BRIDE SONG

  CONFLUENTS

  THE LOWEST ROOM

  DEAD HOPE

  A DAUGHTER OF EVE

  SONG: OH WHAT COMES OVER THE SEA

  VENUS’ LOOKING-GLASS

  LOVE LIES BLEEDING

  BIRD RAPTURES

  MY FRIEND

  TWILIGHT NIGHT

  A BIRD SONG

  A SMILE AND A SIGH

  AMOR MUNDI

  THE GERMAN-FRENCH CAMPAIGN 1870-1871

  THY BROTHER’S BLOOD CRIETH

  TODAY FOR ME

  A CHRISTMAS CAROL: IN THE BLEAK MID-WINTER

  CONSIDER

  BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON B.C. 570

  PARADISE

  MOTHER COUNTRY

  I WILL LIFT UP MINE EYES UNTO THE HILLS

  THE MASTER IS COME, AND CALLETH FOR THEE

  WHO SHALL DELIVER ME?

  WHEN MY HEART IS VEXED, I WILL COMPLAIN

  AFTER COMMUNION

  SAINTS AND ANGELS

  A ROSE PLANT IN JERICHO

  ‘Dante Gabriel Rossetti’ by George Frederic Watts, 1871

  THE PRINCE’S PROGRESS

  Till all sweet gums and juices flow,

  Till the blossom of blossoms blow,

  The long hours go and come and go,

  The bride she sleepeth, waketh, sleepeth,

  Waiting for one whose coming is slow: —

  Hark! the bride weepeth.

  ‘How long shall I wait, come heat come rime?’ —

  ‘Till the strong Prince comes, who must come in time’

  (Her women say), ‘there’s a mountain to climb,

  A river to ford. Sleep, dream and sleep;

  Sleep’ (they say): ‘we’ve muffled the chime,

  Better dream than weep.’

  In his world-end palace the strong Prince sat,

  Taking his ease on cushion and mat,

  Close at hand lay his staff and his hat.

  ‘When wilt thou start? the bride waits, O youth.’ —

  ‘Now the moon’s at full; I tarried for that,

  Now I start in truth.

  ‘But tell me first, true voice of my doom,

  Of my veiled bride in her maiden bloom;

  Keeps she watch through glare and through gloom,

  Watch for me asleep and awake?’ —

  ‘Spell-bound she watches in one white room,

  And is patient for thy sake.

  ‘By her head lilies and rosebuds grow;

  The lilies droop, will the rosebuds blow?

  The silver slim lilies hang the head low;

  Their stream is scanty, their sunshine rare:

  Let the sun blaze out, and let the stream flow,

  They will blossom and wax fair.

  ‘Red and white poppies grow at her feet,

  The blood-red wait for sweet summer heat,

  Wrapped in bud-coats hairy and neat;

  But the white buds swell, one day they will burst,

  Will open their death-cups drowsy and sweet —

  Which will open the first?’

  Then a hundred sad voices lifted a wail,

&nbs
p; And a hundred glad voices piped on the gale:

  ‘Time is short, life is short,’ they took up the tale:

  ‘Life is sweet, love is sweet, use today while you may;

  Love is sweet, and tomorrow may fail;

  Love is sweet, use today.’

  While the song swept by, beseeching and meek,

  Up rose the Prince with a flush on his cheek,

  Up he rose to stir and to seek,

  Going forth in the joy of his strength;

  Strong of limb if of purpose weak,

  Starting at length.

  Forth he set in the breezy morn,

  Crossing green fields of nodding corn,

  As goodly a Prince as ever was born;

  Caroling with the caroling lark; —

  Sure his bride will be won and worn,

  Ere fall of the dark.

  So light his step, so merry his smile,

  A milkmaid loitered beside a stile,

  Set down her pail and rested awhile,

  A wave-haired milkmaid, rosy and white;

  The Prince, who had journeyed at least a mile,

  Grew athirst at the sight.

  ‘Will you give me a morning draught?’ —

  ‘You’re kindly welcome,’ she said, and laughed.

  He lifted the pail, new milk he quaffed;

  Then wiping his curly black beard like silk:

  ‘Whitest cow that ever was calved

  Surely gave you this milk.’

  Was it milk now, or was it cream?

  Was she a maid, or an evil dream?

  Here eyes began to glitter and gleam;

  He would have gone, but he stayed instead;

  Green they gleamed as he looked in them:

  ‘Give me my fee,’ she said. —

  ‘I will give you a jewel of gold.’ —

  ‘Not so; gold is heavy and cold.’ —

  ‘I will give you a velvet fold

  Of foreign work your beauty to deck.’ —

  ‘Better I like my kerchief rolled

  Light and white round my neck.’ —

  ‘Nay,’ cried he, ‘but fix your own fee.’ —

  She laughed, ‘You may give the full moon to me;

  Or else sit under this apple-tree

  Here for one idle day by my side;

  After that I’ll let you go free,

  And the world is wide.’

  Loth to stay, but to leave her slack,

  He half turned away, then he quite turned back:

  For courtesy’s sake he could not lack

  To redeem his own royal pledge;

  Ahead too the windy heaven lowered black

  With a fire-cloven edge.

  So he stretched his length in the apple-tree shade,

  Lay and laughed and talked to the maid,

  Who twisted her hair in a cunning braid

  And writhed it shining in serpent-coils,

  And held him a day and night fast laid

  In her subtle toils.

  At the death of night and the birth of day,

  When the owl left off his sober play,

  And the bat hung himself out of the way,

  Woke the song of mavis and merle,

  And heaven put off its hodden grey

  For mother-o’-pearl.

  Peeped up daisies here and there,

  Here, there, and everywhere;

  Rose a hopeful lark in the air,

  Spreading out towards the sun his breast;

  While the moon set solemn and fair

  Away in the West.

  ‘Up, up, up,’ called the watchman lark,

  In his clear réveillée: ‘Hearken, oh hark!

  Press to the high goal, fly to the mark.

  Up, O sluggard, new morn is born;

  If still asleep when the night falls dark,

  Thou must wait a second morn.’

  ‘Up, up, up,’ sad glad voices swelled:

  ‘So the tree falls and lies as it’s felled.

  Be thy bands loosed, O sleeper, long held

  In sweet sleep whose end is not sweet.

  Be the slackness girt and the softness quelled

  And the slowness fleet.’

  Off he set. The grass grew rare,

  A blight lurked in the darkening air,

  The very moss grew hueless and spare,

  The last daisy stood all astunt;

  Behind his back the soil lay bare,

  But barer in front.

  A land of chasm and rent, a land

  Of rugged blackness on either hand:

  If water trickled its track was tanned

  With an edge of rust to the chink;

  If one stamped on stone or on sand

  It returned a clink.

  A lifeless land, a loveless land,

  Without lair or nest on either hand:

  Only scorpions jerked in the sand,

  Black as black iron, or dusty pale;

  From point to point sheer rock was manned

  By scorpions in mail.

  A land of neither life nor death,

  Where no man buildeth or fashioneth,

  Where none draws living or dying breath;

  No man cometh or goeth there,

  No man doeth, seeketh, saith,

  In the stagnant air.

  Some old volcanic upset must

  Have rent the crust and blackened the crust;

  Wrenched and ribbed it beneath its dust

  Above earth’s molten centre at seethe,

  Heaved and heaped it by huge upthrust

  Of fire beneath.

  Untrodden before, untrodden since:

  Tedious land for a social Prince;

  Halting, he scanned the outs and ins,

  Endless, labyrinthine, grim,

  Of the solitude that made him wince,

  Laying wait for him.

  By bulging rock and gaping cleft,

  Even of half mere daylight reft,

  Rueful he peered to right and left,

  Muttering in his altered mood:

  ‘The fate is hard that weaves my weft,

  Though my lot be good.’

  Dim the changes of day to night,

  Of night scarce dark to day not bright.

  Still his road wound towards the right,

  Still he went, and still he went,

  Till one night he espied a light,

  In his discontent.

  Out it flashed from a yawn-mouthed cave,

  Like a red-hot eye from a grave.

  No man stood there of whom to crave

  Rest for wayfarer plodding by:

  Though the tenant were churl or knave

  The Prince might try.

  In he passed and tarried not,

  Groping his way from spot to spot,

  Towards where the cavern flare glowed hot: —

  An old, old mortal, cramped and double,

  Was peering into a seething-pot,

  In a world of trouble.

  The veriest atomy he looked,

  With grimy fingers clutching and crooked,

  Tight skin, a nose all bony and hooked,

  And a shaking, sharp, suspicious way;

  His blinking eyes had scarcely brooked

  The light of day.

  Stared the Prince, for the sight was new;

  Stared, but asked without more ado:

  ‘My a weary traveller lodge with you,

  Old father, here in your lair?

  In your country the inns seem few,

  And scanty the fare.’

  The head turned not to hear him speak;

  The old voice whistled as through a leak

  (Out it came in a quavering squeak):

  ‘Work for wage is a bargain fit:

  If there’s aught of mine that you seek

  You must work for it.

  ‘Buried alive from light and air

  This year is the hundredth year,

  I feed my fire with
a sleepless care,

  Watching my potion wane or wax:

  Elixir of Life is simmering there,

  And but one thing lacks.

  ‘If you’re fain to lodge here with me,

  Take that pair of bellows you see —

  Too heavy for my old hands they be —

  Take the bellows and puff and puff:

  When the steam curls rosy and free

  The broth’s boiled enough.

  ‘Then take your choice of all I have;

  I will give you life if you crave.

  Already I’m mildewed for the grave,

  So first myself I must drink my fill:

  But all the rest may be yours, to save

  Whomever you will.’

  ‘Done,’ quoth the Prince, and the bargain stood,

  First he piled on resinous wood,

  Next plied the bellows in hopeful mood;

  Thinking, ‘My love and I will live.

  If I tarry, why life is good,

  And she may forgive.’

  The pot began to bubble and boil;

  The old man cast in essence and oil,

  He stirred all up with a triple coil

  Of gold and silver and iron wire,

  Dredged in a pinch of virgin soil,

  And fed the fire.

  But still the steam curled watery white;

  Night turned to day and day to night;

  One thing lacked, by his feeble sight

  Unseen, unguessed by his feeble mind:

  Life might miss him, but Death the blight

  Was sure to find.

  So when the hundredth year was full

  The thread was cut and finished the school.

  Death snapped the old worn-out tool,

  Snapped him short while he stood and stirred

  (Though stiff he stood as a stiff-necked mule)

  With never a word.

  Thus at length the old crab was nipped.

  The dead hand slipped, the dead finger dipped

  In the broth as the dead man slipped, —

  That same instant, a rosy red

  Flushed the steam, and quivered and clipped

  Round the dead old head.