Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti

by Christina Rossetti

  My bride before the morn;

  Ripe-blooming she, as thou forlorn.

  Ripe-blooming she, my rose, my peach;

  She woos me day and night:

  I watch her tremble in my reach;

  She reddens, my delight,

  She ripens, reddens in my sight.’

  ‘And is she like a sunlit rose?

  Am I like withered leaves?

  Haste where thy spicèd garden blows:

  But in bare Autumn eves

  Wilt thou have store of harvest sheaves?

  Thou leavest love, true love behind,

  To seek a love as true;

  Go, seek in haste: but wilt thou find?

  Change new again for new;

  Pluck up, enjoy — yea, trample too.

  ‘Alas for her, poor faded rose,

  Alas for her her, like me,

  Cast down and trampled in the snows.’

  ‘Like thee? nay, not like thee:

  She leans, but from a guarded tree.

  Farewell, and dream as long ago,

  Before we ever met:

  Farewell; my swift-paced horse seems slow.’

  She raised her eyes, not wet

  But hard, to Heaven: ‘Does God forget?’

  ON THE WING

  Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)

  We stood together in an open field;

  Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled,

  Sporting at ease and courting full in view.

  When loftier still a broadening darkness flew,

  Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed;

  Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield;

  So farewell life and love and pleasures new.

  Then as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground,

  Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson drops,

  I wept, and thought I turned towards you to weep:

  But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops

  Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound

  Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep.

  A RING POSY

  Jess and Jill are pretty girls,

  Plump and well to do,

  In a cloud of windy curls:

  Yet I know who

  Loves me more than curls or pearls.

  I’m not pretty, not a bit —

  Thin and sallow-pale;

  When I trudge along the street

  I don’t need a veil:

  Yet I have one fancy hit.

  Jess and Jill can trill and sing

  With a flute-like voice,

  Dance as light as bird on wing,

  Laugh for careless joys:

  Yet it’s I who wear the ring.

  Jess and Jill will mate some day,

  Surely, surely:

  Ripen on to June through May,

  While the sun shines make their hay,

  Slacken steps demurely:

  Yet even there I lead the way.

  BEAUTY IS VAIN

  While roses are so red,

  While lilies are so white,

  Shall a woman exalt her face

  Because it gives delight?

  She’s not so sweet as a rose,

  A lily’s straighter than she,

  And if she were as red or white

  She’d be but one of three.

  Whether she flush in love’s summer

  Or in its winter grow pale,

  Whether she flaunt her beauty

  Or hide it away in a veil,

  Be she red or white,

  And stand she erect or bowed,

  Time will win the race he runs with her

  And hide her away in a shroud.

  MAGGIE A LADY

  You must not call me Maggie, you must not call me Dear,

  For I’m Lady of the Manor now stately to see;

  And if there comes a babe, as there may some happy year,

  ‘Twill be little lord or lady at my knee.

  Oh, but what ails you, my sailor cousin Phil,

  That you shake and turn white like a cockcrow ghost?

  You’re as white as I turned once down by the mill,

  When one told me you and ship and crew were lost:

  Philip my playfellow, when we were boy and girl

  (It was the Miller’s Nancy told it to me),

  Philip with the merry life in lip and curl,

  Philip my playfellow drowned in the sea!

  I thought I should have fainted, but I did not faint;

  I stood stunned at the moment, scarcely sad,

  Till I raised my wail of desolate complaint

  For you, my cousin, brother, all I had.

  They said I looked so pale — some say so fair —

  My lord stopped in passing to soothe me back to life:

  I know I missed a ringlet from my hair

  Next morning; and now I am his wife.

  Look at my gown, Philip, and look at my ring,

  I’m all crimson and gold from top to toe:

  All day long I sit in the sun and sing,

  Where in the sun red roses blush and blow.

  And I’m the rose of roses says my lord;

  And to him I’m more than the sun in the sky,

  While I hold him fast with the golden cord

  Of a curl, with the eyelash of an eye.

  His mother said ‘fie,’ and his sisters cried ‘shame,’

  His highborn ladies cried ‘shame’ from their place:

  They said ‘fie’ when they only heard my name,

  But fell silent when they saw my face.

  Am I so fair, Philip? Philip, did you think

  I was so fair when we played boy and girl,

  Where blue forget-me-nots bloomed on the brink

  Of our stream which the mill-wheel sent a whirl?

  If I was fair then sure I’m fairer now,

  Sitting where a score of servants stand,

  With a coronet on high days for my brow

  And almost a sceptre for my hand.

  You’re but a sailor, Philip, weatherbeaten brown,

  A stranger on land and at home on the sea,

  Coasting as best you may from town to town:

  Coasting along do you often think of me?

  I’m a great lady in a sheltered bower,

  With hands grown white through having nought to do:

  Yet sometimes I think of you hour after hour

  Till I nigh wish myself a child with you.

  WHAT WOULD I GIVE?

  What would I give for a heart of flesh to warm me through,

  Instead of this heart of stone ice-cold whatever I do;

  Hard and cold and small, of all hearts the worst of all.

  What would I give for words, if only words would come;

  But now in its misery my spirit has fallen dumb:

  Oh, merry friends, go your own way, I have never a word to say.

  What would I give for tears, not smiles but scalding tears,

  To wash the black mark clean, and to thaw the frost of years,

  To wash the stain ingrain and to make me clean again.

  THE BOURNE

  Underneath the growing grass,

  Underneath the living flowers,

  Deeper than the sound of showers:

  There we shall not count the hours

  By the shadows as they pass.

  Youth and health will be but vain,

  Beauty reckoned of no worth:

  There a very little girth

  Can hold round what once the earth

  Seemed too narrow to contain.

  SUMMER

  Winter is cold-hearted

  Spring is yea and nay,

  Autumn is a weather-cock

  Blown every way:

  Summer days for me

  When every leaf is on its tree;

  When Robin’s not a beggar,

  And Jenny Wren’s a bride,

  And larks hang singing, s
inging, singing,

  Over the wheat-fields wide,

  And anchored lilies ride,

  And the pendulum spider

  Swings from side to side,

  And blue-black beetles transact business,

  And gnats fly in a host,

  And furry caterpillars hasten

  That no time be lost,

  And moths grow fat and thrive,

  And ladybirds arrive.

  Before green apples blush,

  Before green nuts embrown,

  Why, one day in the country

  Is worth a month in town;

  Is worth a day and a year

  Of the dusty, musty, lag-last fashion

  That days drone elsewhere.

  AUTUMN

  I dwell alone — I dwell alone, alone,

  Whilst full my river flows down to the sea,

  Gilded with flashing boats

  That bring no friend to me:

  O love-songs, gurgling from a hundred throats,

  O love-pangs, let me be.

  Fair fall the freighted boats which gold and stone

  And spices bear to sea:

  Slim, gleaming maidens swell their mellow notes,

  Love-promising, entreating —

  Ah! sweet, but fleeting —

  Beneath the shivering, snow-white sails.

  Hush! the wind flags and fails —

  Hush! they will lie becalmed in sight of strand —

  Sight of my strand, where I do dwell alone;

  Their songs wake singing echoes in my land —

  They cannot hear me moan.

  One latest, solitary swallow flies

  Across the sea, rough autumn-tempest tossed,

  Poor bird, shall it be lost?

  Dropped down into this uncongenial sea,

  With no kind eyes

  To watch it while it dies,

  Unguessed, uncared for, free:

  Set free at last,

  The short pang past,

  In sleep, in death, in dreamless sleep locked fast.

  Mine avenue is all a growth of oaks,

  Some rent by thunder strokes,

  Some rustling leaves and acorns in the breeze;

  Fair fall my fertile trees,

  That rear their goodly heads, and live at ease.

  A spider’s web blocks all mine avenue;

  He catches down and foolish painted flies

  That spider wary and wise.

  Each morn it hangs a rainbow strung with dew

  Betwixt boughs green with sap,

  So fair, few creatures guess it is a trap:

  I will not mar the web,

  Though sad I am to see the small lives ebb.

  It shakes — my trees shake — for a wind is roused

  In cavern where it housed:

  Each white and quivering sail,

  Of boats among the water leaves

  Hollows and strains in the full-throated gale:

  Each maiden sings again —

  Each languid maiden, whom the calm

  Had lulled to sleep with rest and spice and balm

  Miles down my river to the sea

  They float and wane,

  Long miles away from me.

  Perhaps they say: ‘She grieves,

  Uplifted, like a beacon, on her tower.’

  Perhaps they say: ‘One hour

  More, and we dance among the golden sheaves.’

  Perhaps they say: ‘One hour

  More, and we stand,

  Face to face, hand in hand;

  Make haste, O slack gale, to the looked-for land!’

  My trees are not in flower,

  I have no bower,

  And gusty creaks my tower,

  And lonesome, very lonesome, is my strand.

  THE GHOST’S PETITION

  ‘There’s a footstep coming: look out and see,’

  ‘The leaves are falling, the wind is calling;

  No one cometh across the lea.’ —

  ‘There’s a footstep coming; O sister, look.’ —

  ‘The ripple flashes, the white foam dashes;

  No one cometh across the brook.’ —

  ‘But he promised that he would come:

  Tonight, tomorrow, in joy or sorrow,

  He must keep his word, and must come home.

  ‘For he promised that he would come:

  His word was given; from earth or heaven,

  He must keep his word, and must come home.

  ‘Go to sleep, my sweet sister Jane;

  You can slumber, who need not number

  Hour after hour, in doubt and pain.

  ‘I shall sit here awhile, and watch;

  Listening, hoping, for one hand groping

  In deep shadow to find the latch.’

  After the dark, and before the light,

  One lay sleeping; and one sat weeping,

  Who had watched and wept the weary night.

  After the night, and before the day,

  One lay sleeping; and one sat weeping —

  Watching, weeping for one away.

  There came a footstep climbing the stair;

  Some one standing out on the landing

  Shook the door like a puff of air —

  Shook the door, and in he passed.

  Did he enter? In the room centre

  Stood her husband: the door shut fast.

  ‘O Robin, but you are cold —

  Chilled with the night-dew: so lily-white you

  Look like a stray lamb from our fold.

  ‘O Robin, but you are late:

  Come and sit near me — sit here and cheer me.’ —

  (Blue the flame burnt in the grate.)

  ‘Lay not down your head on my breast:

  I cannot hold you, kind wife, nor fold you

  In the shelter that you love best.

  ‘Feel not after my clasping hand:

  I am but a shadow, come from the meadow

  Where many lie, but no tree can stand.

  ‘We are trees which have shed their leaves:

  Our heads lie low there, but no tears flow there;

  Only I grieve for my wife who grieves.

  ‘I could rest if you would not moan

  Hour after hour; I have no power

  To shut my ears where I lie alone.

  ‘I could rest if you would not cry;

  But there’s no sleeping while you sit weeping —

  Watching, weeping so bitterly.’ —

  ‘Woe’s me! woe’s me! for this I have heard.

  Oh night of sorrow! — oh black tomorrow!

  Is it thus that you keep your word?

  ‘O you who used so to shelter me

  Warm from the least wind — why, now the east wind

  Is warmer than you, whom I quake to see.

  ‘O my husband of flesh and blood,

  For whom my mother I left, and brother,

  And all I had, accounting it good,

  ‘What do you do there, underground,

  In the dark hollow? I’m fain to follow.

  What do you do there? — what have you found?’ —

  ‘What I do there I must not tell:

  But I have plenty: kind wife, content ye:

  It is well with us — it is well.

  ‘Tender hand hath made our nest;

  Our fear is ended, our hope is blended

  With present pleasure, and we have rest.’ —

  ‘Oh, but Robin, I’m fain to come,

  If your present days are so pleasant;

  For my days are so wearisome.

  ‘Yet I’ll dry my tears for your sake:

  Why should I tease you, who cannot please you

  Any more with the pains I take?’

  MEMORY

  I

  I nursed it in my bosom while it lived,

  I hid it in my heart when it was dead;

  In joy I sat alone, even so I grieved

  Alone and nothing said. />
  I shut the door to face the naked truth,

  I stood alone — I faced the truth alone,

  Stripped bare of self-regard or forms or ruth

  Till first and last were shown.

  I took the perfect balances and weighed;

  No shaking of my hand disturbed the poise;

  Weighed, found it wanting: not a word I said,

  But silent made my choice.

  None know the choice I made; I make it still.

  None know the choice I made and broke my heart,

  Breaking mine idol: I have braced my will

  Once, chosen for once my part.

  I broke it at a blow, I laid it cold,

  Crushed in my deep heart where it used to live.

  My heart dies inch by inch; the time grows old,

  Grows old in which I grieve.

  II

  I have a room whereinto no one enters

  Save I myself alone:

  There sits a blessed memory on a throne,

  There my life centres.

  While winter comes and goes — oh tedious comer! —

  And while its nip-wind blows;

  While bloom the bloodless lily and warm rose

  Of lavish summer.

  If any should force entrance he might see there

  One buried yet not dead,

  Before whose face I no more bow my head

  Or bend my knee there;

  But often in my worn life’s autumn weather

  I watch there with clear eyes,

  And think how it will be in Paradise

  When we’re together.

  A ROYAL PRINCESS

  I, a princess, king-descended, decked with jewels, gilded, drest,