Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti

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Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti Page 15

by Christina Rossetti


  And all the while she milked and milked

  The grave cow heavy-laden:

  I’ve seen grand ladies plumed and silked,

  But not a sweeter maiden;

  But not a sweeter fresher maid

  Than this in homely cotton,

  Whose pleasant face and silky braid

  I have not yet forgotten.

  Seven springs have passed since then, as I

  Count with a sober sorrow;

  Seven springs have come and passed me by,

  And spring sets in tomorrow.

  I’ve half a mind to shake myself

  Free just for once from London,

  To set my work upon the shelf

  And leave it done or undone;

  To run down by the early train,

  Whirl down with shriek and whistle,

  And feel the bluff North blow again,

  And mark the sprouting thistle

  Set up on waste patch of the lane

  Its green and tender bristle.

  And spy the scarce-blown violet banks,

  Crisp primrose leaves and others,

  And watch the lambs leap at their pranks

  And butt their patient mothers.

  Alas, one point in all my plan

  My serious thoughts demur to:

  Seven years have passed for maid and man,

  Seven years have passed for her too;

  Perhaps my rose is overblown,

  Not rosy or too rosy;

  Perhaps in farmhouse of her own

  Some husband keeps her cosy,

  Where I should show a face unknown.

  Good-bye, my wayside posy.

  SOMEWHERE OR OTHER

  Somewhere or other there must surely be

  The face not seen, the voice not heard,

  The heart that not yet — never yet — ah me!

  Made answer to my word.

  Somewhere or other, may be near or far;

  Past land and sea, clean out of sight;

  Beyond the wandering moon, beyond the star

  That tracks her night by night.

  Somewhere or other, may be far or near;

  With just a wall, a hedge, between;

  With just the last leaves of the dying year

  Fallen on a turf grown green.

  A CHILL

  What can lambkins do

  All the keen night through?

  Nestle by their woolly mother

  The careful ewe.

  What can nestlings do

  In the nightly dew?

  Sleep beneath their mother’s wing

  Till day breaks anew.

  If in a field or tree

  There might only be

  Such a warm soft sleeping-place

  Found for me!

  CHILD’S TALK IN APRIL

  I wish you were a pleasant wren,

  And I your small accepted mate;

  How we’d look down on toilsome men!

  We’d rise and go to bed at eight

  Or it may be not quite so late.

  Then you should see the nest I’d build,

  The wondrous nest for you and me;

  The outside rough perhaps, but filled

  With wool and down; ah, you should see

  The cosy nest that it would be.

  We’d have our change of hope and fear,

  Small quarrels, reconcilements sweet:

  I’d perch by you to chirp and cheer,

  Or hop about on active feet,

  And fetch you dainty bits to eat.

  We’d be so happy by the day,

  So safe and happy through the night,

  We both should feel, and I should say,

  It’s all one season of delight,

  And we’ll make merry whilst we may.

  Perhaps someday there’d be an egg

  When spring had blossomed from the snow:

  I’d stand triumphant on one leg;

  Like chanticleer I’d almost crow

  To let our little neighbours know.

  Next you should sit and I would sing

  Through lengthening days of sunny spring;

  Till, if you wearied of the task,

  I’d sit; and you should spread your wing

  From bough to bough; I’d sit and bask.

  Fancy the breaking of the shell,

  The chirp, the chickens wet and bare,

  The untried proud paternal swell;

  And you with housewife-matron air

  Enacting choicer bills of fare.

  Fancy the embryo coats of down,

  The gradual feathers soft and sleek;

  Till clothed and strong from tail to crown,

  With virgin warblings in their beak,

  They too go forth to soar and seek.

  So would it last an April through

  And early summer fresh with dew:

  Then should we part and live as twain,

  Love-time would bring me back to you

  And build our happy nest again.

  GONE FOR EVER

  O happy rose-bud blooming

  Upon thy parent tree,

  Nay, thou art too presuming;

  For soon the earth entombing

  Thy faded charms shall be,

  And the chill damp consuming.

  O happy skylark springing

  Up to the broad blue sky,

  Too fearless in thy winging,

  Too gladsome in thy singing,

  Thou also soon shalt lie

  Where no sweet notes are ringing.

  And through life’s shine and shower

  We shall have joy and pain;

  But in the summer bower,

  And at the morning hour,

  We still shall look in vain

  For the same bird and flower.

  THE INIQUITY OF THE FATHERS UPON THE CHILDREN

  Oh the rose of keenest thorn!

  One hidden summer morn

  Under the rose I was born.

  I do not guess his name

  Who wrought my Mother’s shame,

  And gave me life forlorn,

  But my Mother, Mother, Mother,

  I know her from all other.

  My Mother pale and mild,

  Fair as ever was seen,

  She was but scarce sixteen,

  Little more than a child,

  When I was born

  To work her scorn.

  With secret bitter throes,

  In a passion of secret woes,

  She bore me under the rose.

  One who my Mother nursed

  Took me from the first: —

  ‘O nurse, let me look upon

  This babe that costs so dear;

  Tomorrow she will be gone:

  Other mothers may keep

  Their babes awake and asleep,

  But I must not keep her here.’ —

  Whether I know or guess,

  I know this not the less.

  So I was sent away

  That none might spy the truth:

  And my childhood waxed to youth

  And I left off childish play.

  I never cared to play

  With the village boys and girls;

  And I think they thought me proud,

  I found so little to say

  And kept so from the crowd:

  But I had the longest curls

  And I had the largest eyes

  And my teeth were small like pearls;

  The girls might flout and scout me,

  But the boys would hang about me

  In sheepish mooning wise.

  Our one-street village stood

  A long mile from the town,

  A mile of windy down

  And bleak one-sided wood,

  With not a single house.

  Our town itself was small,

  With just the common shops,

  And throve in its small way.

  Our neighbouring gentry reared

  Th
e good old-fashioned crops,

  And made old-fashioned boasts

  Of what John Bull would do

  If Frenchman Frog appeared,

  And drank old-fashioned toasts,

  And made old-fashioned bows

  To my Lady at the Hall.

  My Lady at the Hall

  Is grander than they all:

  Hers is the oldest name

  In all the neighbourhood;

  But the race must die with her

  Though she’s a lofty dame,

  For she’s unmarried still.

  Poor people say she’s good

  And has an open hand

  As any in the land,

  And she’s the comforter

  Of many sick and sad;

  My nurse once said to me

  That everything she had

  Came of my Lady’s bounty:

  ‘Though she’s greatest in the county

  She’s humble to the poor,

  No beggar seeks her door

  But finds help presently.

  I pray both night and day

  For her, and you must pray:

  But she’ll never feel distress

  If needy folk can bless.’

  I was a little maid

  When here we came to live

  From somewhere by the sea.

  Men spoke a foreign tongue

  There where we used to be

  When I was merry and young,

  Too young to feel afraid;

  The fisher folk would give

  A kind strange word to me,

  There by the foreign sea:

  I don’t know where it was,

  But I remember still

  Our cottage on a hill,

  And fields of flowering grass

  On that fair foreign shore.

  I liked my old home best,

  But this was pleasant too:

  So here we made our nest

  And here I grew.

  And now and then my Lady

  In riding past our door

  Would nod to Nurse and speak,

  Or stoop and pat my cheek;

  And I was always ready

  To hold the field-gate wide

  For my Lady to go through;

  My Lady in her veil

  So seldom put aside,

  My Lady grave and pale.

  I often sat to wonder

  Who might my parents be,

  For I knew of something under

  My simple-seeming state.

  Nurse never talked to me

  Of mother or of father,

  But watched me early and late

  With kind suspicious cares:

  Or not suspicious, rather

  Anxious, as if she knew

  Some secret I might gather

  And smart for unawares.

  Thus I grew.

  But Nurse waxed old and grey,

  Bent and weak with years.

  There came a certain day

  That she lay upon her bed

  Shaking her palsied head,

  With words she gasped to say

  Which had to stay unsaid.

  Then with a jerking hand

  Held out so piteously

  She gave a ring to me

  Of gold wrought curiously,

  A ring which she had worn

  Since the day I was born,

  She once had said to me:

  I slipped it on my finger;

  Her eyes were keen to linger

  On my hand that slipped it on;

  Then she sighed one rattling sigh

  And stared on with sightless eye: —

  The one who loved me was gone.

  How long I stayed alone

  With the corpse I never knew,

  For I fainted dead as stone:

  When I came to life once more

  I was down upon the floor,

  With neighbours making ado

  To bring me back to life.

  I heard the sexton’s wife

  Say: ‘Up, my lad, and run

  To tell it at the Hall;

  She was my Lady’s nurse,

  And done can’t be undone.

  I’ll watch by this poor lamb.

  I guess my Lady’s purse

  Is always open to such:

  I’d run up on my crutch

  A cripple as I am,’

  (For cramps had vexed her much)

  ‘Rather than this dear heart

  Lack one to take her part.’

  For days day after day

  On my weary bed I lay

  Wishing the time would pass;

  Oh, so wishing that I was

  Likely to pass away:

  For the one friend whom I knew

  Was dead, I knew no other,

  Neither father nor mother;

  And I, what should I do?

  One day the sexton’s wife

  Said: ‘Rouse yourself, my dear:

  My Lady has driven down

  From the Hall into the town,

  And we think she’s coming here.

  Cheer up, for life is life.’

  But I would not look or speak,

  Would not cheer up at all.

  My tears were like to fall,

  So I turned round to the wall

  And hid my hollow cheek

  Making as if I slept,

  As silent as a stone,

  And no one knew I wept.

  What was my Lady to me,

  The grand lady from the Hall?

  She might come, or stay away,

  I was sick at heart that day:

  The whole world seemed to be

  Nothing, just nothing to me,

  For aught that I could see.

  Yet I listened where I lay:

  A bustle came below,

  A clear voice said: ‘I know;

  I will see her first alone,

  It may be less of a shock

  If she’s so weak today:’ —

  A light hand turned the lock,

  A light step crossed the floor,

  One sat beside my bed:

  But never a word she said.

  For me, my shyness grew

  Each moment more and more:

  So I said never a word

  And neither looked nor stirred;

  I think she must have heard

  My heart go pit-a-pat:

  Thus I lay, my Lady sat,

  More than a mortal hour —

  (I counted one and two

  By the house-clock while I lay):

  I seemed to have no power

  To think of a thing to say,

  Or do what I ought to do,

  Or rouse myself to a choice.

  At last she said: ‘Margaret,

  Won’t you even look at me?’

  A something in her voice

  Forced my tears to fall at last,

  Forced sobs from me thick and fast;

  Something not of the past,

  Yet stirring memory;

  A something new, and yet

  Not new, too sweet to last,

  Which I never can forget.

  I turned and stared at her:

  Her cheek showed hollow-pale;

  Her hair like mine was fair,

  A wonderful fall of hair

  That screened her like a veil;

  But her height was statelier,

  Her eyes had depth more deep;

  I think they must have had

  Always a something sad,

  Unless they were asleep.

  While I stared, my Lady took

  My hand in her spare hand

  Jeweled and soft and grand,

  And looked with a long long look

  Of hunger in my face;

  As if she tried to trace

  Features she ought to know,

  And half hoped, half feared, to find.

  Whatever was in her mind

  She heaved a sigh at last,
<
br />   And began to talk to me.

  ‘Your nurse was my dear nurse,

  And her nursling’s dear,’ said she:

  ‘I never knew that she was worse

  Till her poor life was past’

  (Here my Lady’s tears dropped fast):

  ‘I might have been with her,

  But she had no comforter.

  She might have told me much

  Which now I shall never know,

  Never never shall know.’

  She sat by me sobbing so,

  And seemed so woe-begone,

  That I laid one hand upon

  Hers with a timid touch,

  Scarce thinking what I did,

  Not knowing what to say:

  That moment her face was hid

  In the pillow close by mine,

  Her arm was flung over me,

  She hugged me, sobbing so

  As if her heart would break,

  And kissed me where I lay.

  After this she often came

  To bring me fruit or wine,

  Or sometimes hothouse flowers.

  And at nights I lay awake

  Often and often thinking

  What to do for her sake.

  Wet or dry it was the same:

  She would come in at all hours,

  Set me eating and drinking

  And say I must grow strong;

  At last the day seemed long

  And home seemed scarcely home

  If she did not come.

  Well, I grew strong again:

  In time of primroses,

  I went to pluck them in the lane;

  In time of nestling birds,

  I heard them chirping round the house;

  And all the herds

  Were out at grass when I grew strong,

  And days were waxen long,

  And there was work for bees

  Among the May-bush boughs,

  And I had shot up tall,

  And life felt after all

  Pleasant, and not so long

  When I grew strong.

  I was going to the Hall

  To be my Lady’s maid:

  ‘Her little friend,’ she said to me,

  ‘Almost her child,’

  She said and smiled

  Sighing painfully;

  Blushing, with a second flush

  As if she blushed to blush.

  Friend, servant, child: just this

 

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