Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti

by Christina Rossetti

  I weep as I have never wept:

  Oh it was summer when I slept,

  It’s winter now I waken.

  Talk what you please of future spring

  And sun-warmed sweet tomorrow: —

  Stripped bare of hope and everything,

  No more to laugh, no more to sing,

  I sit alone with sorrow.

  SONG: OH WHAT COMES OVER THE SEA

  Oh what comes over the sea,

  Shoals and quicksands past;

  And what comes home to me,

  Sailing slow, sailing fast?

  A wind comes over the sea

  With a moan in its blast;

  But nothing comes home to me,

  Sailing slow, sailing fast.

  Let me be, let me be,

  For my lot is cast:

  Land or sea all’s one to me,

  And sail it slow or fast.

  VENUS’ LOOKING-GLASS

  I marked where lovely Venus and her court

  With song and dance and merry laugh went by;

  Weightless, their wingless feet seemed made to fly,

  Bound from the ground and in mid air to sport.

  Left far behind I heard the dolphins snort,

  Tracking their goddess with a wistful eye,

  Around whose head white doves rose, wheeling high

  Or low, and cooed after their tender sort.

  All this I saw in spring. Through summer heat

  I saw the lovely Queen of Love no more.

  But when flushed autumn through the woodlands went

  I spied sweet Venus walk amid the wheat:

  Whom seeing, every harvester gave o’er

  His toil, and laughed and hoped and was content.

  LOVE LIES BLEEDING

  Love that is dead and buried, yesterday

  Out of his grave rose up before my face,

  No recognition in his look, no trace

  Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and grey.

  While I, remembering, found no word to say,

  But felt my quickened heart leap in its place;

  Caught afterglow thrown back from long set days,

  Caught echoes of all music passed away.

  Was this indeed to meet? — I mind me yet

  In youth we met when hope and love were quick,

  We parted with hope dead, but love alive:

  I mind me how we parted then heart sick,

  Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive: —

  Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.

  BIRD RAPTURES

  The sunrise wakes the lark to sing,

  The moonrise wakes the nightingale.

  Come darkness, moonrise, every thing

  That is so silent, sweet, and pale:

  Come, so ye wake the nightingale.

  Make haste to mount, thou wistful moon,

  Make haste to wake the nightingale:

  Let silence set the world in tune

  To hearken to that wordless tale

  Which warbles from the nightingale

  O herald skylark, stay thy flight

  One moment, for a nightingale

  Floods us with sorrow and delight.

  Tomorrow thou shalt hoist the sail;

  Leave us tonight the nightingale.

  MY FRIEND

  Two days ago with dancing glancing hair,

  With living lips and eyes:

  Now pale, dumb, blind, she lies;

  So pale, yet still so fair.

  We have not left her yet, not yet alone;

  But soon must leave her where

  She will not miss our care,

  Bone of our bone.

  Weep not; O friends, we should not weep:

  Our friend of friends lies full of rest;

  No sorrow rankles in her breast,

  Fallen fast asleep.

  She sleeps below,

  She wakes and laughs above;

  Today, as she walked, let us walk in love,

  Tomorrow follow so.

  TWILIGHT NIGHT

  I.

  We met, hand to hand,

  We clasped hands close and fast,

  As close as oak and ivy stand;

  But it is past:

  Come day, come night, day comes at last.

  We loosed hand from hand,

  We parted face from face;

  Each went his way to his own land

  At his own pace:

  Each went to fill his separate place.

  If we should meet one day,

  If both should not forget.

  We shall clasp hands the accustomed way,

  As when we met

  So long ago, as I remember yet.

  II.

  Where my heart is (wherever that may be)

  Might I but follow!

  If you fly thither over heath and lea,

  O honey-seeking bee,

  O careless swallow!

  Bid some for whom I watch keep watch for me

  Alas! that we must dwell, my heart and I,

  So far asunder.

  Hours wax to days, and days and days creep by;

  I watch with wistful eye,

  I wait and wonder:

  When will that day draw nigh — that hour draw nigh?

  Not yesterday, and not I think today;

  Perhaps tomorrow.

  Day after day “tomorrow,” thus I say:

  I watched so yesterday

  In hope and sorrow,

  Again today I watch the accustomed way.

  A BIRD SONG

  It’s a year almost that I have not seen her:

  Oh, last summer green things were greener,

  Brambles fewer, the blue sky bluer.

  It’s surely summer, for there’s a swallow:

  Come one swallow, his mate will follow,

  The bird race quicken and wheel and thicken.

  Oh happy swallow whose mate will follow

  O’er height, o’er hollow! I’d be a swallow,

  To build this weather one nest together.

  A SMILE AND A SIGH

  A smile because the nights are short!

  And every morning brings such pleasure

  Of sweet love-making, harmless sport:

  Love that makes and finds its treasure;

  Love, treasure without measure.

  A sigh because the days are long!

  Long, long these days that pass in sighing,

  A burden saddens every song:

  While time lags which should be flying,

  We live who would be dying.

  AMOR MUNDI

  “O where are you going with your love-locks flowing,

  On the west wind blowing along this valley track?”

  “The downhill path is easy, come with me an it please ye,

  We shall escape the uphill by never turning back.”

  So they two went together in glowing August weather,

  The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right;

  And dear she was to doat on, her swift feet seemed to float on

  The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight.

  “Oh, what is that in heaven where grey cloud-flakes are seven,

  Where blackest clouds hang riven just at the rainy skirt?”

  “Oh, that’s a meteor sent us, a message dumb, portentous,

  An undeciphered solemn signal of help or hurt.”

  “Oh, what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly,

  Their scent comes rich and sickly?” — ”A scaled and hooded worm.”

  “Oh, what’s that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow?”

  “Oh, that’s a thin dead body which waits the eternal term.”

  “Turn again, O my sweetest, — turn again, false and fleetest:

  This beaten way thou beatest I fear is hell’s own track.”

  “Nay, too steep for hill mounting; nay, too late for cost counting:

  This downhill
path is easy, but there’s no turning back.”

  THE GERMAN-FRENCH CAMPAIGN 1870-1871

  These two pieces, written during the suspense of a great nation’s agony, aim at expressing human sympathy, not political bias.

  THY BROTHER’S BLOOD CRIETH

  All her corn-fields rippled in the sunshine,

  All her lovely vines, sweets-laden, bowed;

  Yet some weeks to harvest and to vintage:

  When, as one man’s hand, a cloud

  Rose and spread, and, blackening, burst asunder

  In rain and fire and thunder.

  Is there nought to reap in the day of harvest?

  Hath the vine in her day no fruit to yield?

  Yea, men tread the press, but not for sweetness,

  And they reap a red crop from the field.

  Build barns, ye reapers, garner all aright,

  Though your souls be called tonight.

  A cry of tears goes up from blackened homesteads,

  A cry of blood goes up from reeking earth:

  Tears and blood have a cry that pierces Heaven

  Through all its Hallelujah swells of mirth;

  God hears their cry, and though He tarry, yet

  He doth not forget.

  Mournful Mother, prone in dust weeping,

  Who shall comfort thee for those who are not?

  As thou didst, men do to thee; and heap the measure,

  And heat the furnace sevenfold hot:

  As thou once, now these to thee — who pitieth thee

  From sea to sea?

  O thou King, terrible in strength, and building

  Thy strong future on thy past!

  Though he drink the last, the King of Sheshach,

  Yet he shall drink at the last.

  Art thou greater than great Babylon,

  Which lies overthrown?

  Take heed, ye unwise among the people;

  O ye fools, when will ye understand? —

  He that planted the ear shall He not hear,

  Nor He smite who formed the hand?

  “Vengeance is Mine, is Mine,” thus saith the Lord: —

  O Man, put up thy sword.

  TODAY FOR ME

  She sitteth still who used to dance,

  She weepeth sore and more and more —

  Let us sit with thee weeping sore,

  O fair France!

  She trembleth as the days advance

  Who used to be so light of heart: —

  We in thy trembling bear a part,

  Sister France!

  Her eyes shine tearful as they glance:

  “Who shall give back my slaughtered sons?

  “Bind up,” she saith, “my wounded ones.” —

  Alas, France!

  She struggles in a deathly trance,

  As in a dream her pulses stir,

  She hears the nations calling her,

  “France, France, France!”

  Thou people of the lifted lance,

  Forbear her tears, forbear her blood:

  Roll back, roll back, thy whelming flood,

  Back from France.

  Eye not her loveliness askance,

  Forge not for her a galling chain;

  Leave her at peace to bloom again,

  Vine-clad France.

  A time there is for change and chance,

  A time for passing of the cup:

  And One abides can yet bind up

  Broken France.

  A time there is for change and chance:

  Who next shall drink the trembling cup,

  Wring out its dregs and suck them up

  After France?

  A CHRISTMAS CAROL: IN THE BLEAK MID-WINTER

  In the bleak mid-winter

  Frosty wind made moan,

  Earth stood hard as iron,

  Water like a stone;

  Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

  Snow on snow,

  In the bleak mid-winter

  Long ago.

  Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him

  Nor earth sustain;

  Heaven and earth shall flee away

  When He comes to reign:

  In the bleak mid-winter

  A stable-place sufficed

  The Lord God Almighty

  Jesus Christ.

  Enough for Him whom cherubim

  Worship night and day,

  A breastful of milk

  And a mangerful of hay;

  Enough for Him whom angels

  Fall down before,

  The ox and ass and camel

  Which adore.

  Angels and archangels

  May have gathered there,

  Cherubim and seraphim

  Throng’d the air,

  But only His mother

  In her maiden bliss

  Worshipped her Beloved

  With a kiss.

  What can I give Him,

  Poor as I am?

  If I were a shepherd

  I would bring a lamb,

  If I were a wise man

  I would do my part, —

  Yet what I can I give Him,

  Give my heart.

  CONSIDER

  Consider

  The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief: —

  We are as they;

  Like them we fade away,

  As doth a leaf.

  Consider

  The sparrows of the air of small account:

  Our God doth view

  Whether they fall or mount, —

  He guards us too.

  Consider

  The lilies that do neither spin nor toil,

  Yet are most fair: —

  What profits all this care

  And all this coil?

  Consider

  The birds that have no barn nor harvest-weeks;

  God gives them food: —

  Much more our Father seeks

  To do us good.

  BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON B.C. 570

  Here, where I dwell, I waste to skin and bone;

  The curse is come upon me, and I waste

  In penal torment powerless to atone.

  The curse is come on me, which makes no haste

  And doth not tarry, crushing both the proud

  Hard man and him the sinner double-faced.

  Look not upon me, for my soul is bowed

  Within me, as my body in this mire;

  My soul crawls dumb-struck, sore bestead and cowed

  As Sodom and Gomorrah scourged by fire,

  As Jericho before God’s trumpet-peal,

  So we the elect ones perish in His ire.

  Vainly we gird on sackcloth, vainly kneel

  With famished faces toward Jerusalem:

  His heart is shut against us not to feel,

  His ears against our cry He shutteth them,

  His hand He shorteneth that He will not save,

  His law is loud against us to condemn:

  And we, as unclean bodies in the grave

  Inheriting corruption and the dark,

  Are outcast from His presence which we crave.

  Our Mercy hath departed from His Ark,

  Our Glory hath departed from His rest,

  Our Shield hath left us naked as a mark

  Unto all pitiless eyes made manifest.

  Our very Father hath forsaken us,

  Our God hath cast us from Him: we oppress’d

  Unto our foes are even marvellous,

  A hissing and a butt for pointing hands,

  Whilst God Almighty hunts and grinds us thus;

  For He hath scattered us in alien lands,

  Our priests, our princes, our anointed king,

  And bound us hand and foot with brazen bands.

  Here while I sit, my painful heart takes wing

  Home to the home-land I may see no more,

  Where milk and honey flow, where waters spring

  And fail not, where I dwelt in days of yore

&nbs
p; Under my fig-tree and my fruitful vine,

  There where my parents dwelt at ease before:

  Now strangers press the olives that are mine,

  Reap all the corners of my harvest-field,

  And make their fat hearts wanton with my wine;

  To them my trees, to them my gardens yield

  Their sweets and spices and their tender green,

  O’er them in noontide heat outspread their shield.

  Yet these are they whose fathers had not been

  Housed with my dogs; whom hip and thigh we smote

  And with their blood washed their pollutions clean,

  Purging the land which spewed them from its throat;

  Their daughters took we for a pleasant prey,

  Choice tender ones on whom the fathers dote:

  Now they in turn have led our own away;

  Our daughters and our sisters and our wives

  Sore weeping as they weep who curse the day,

  To live, remote from help, dishonored lives,

  Soothing their drunken masters with a song,

  Or dancing in their golden tinkling gyves:

  Accurst if they remember through the long

  Estrangement of their exile, twice accursed

  If they forget and join the accursèd throng.

  How doth my heart that is so wrung not burst

  When I remember that my way was plain,

  And that God’s candle lit me at the first,

  Whilst now I grope in darkness, grope in vain,

  Desiring but to find Him Who is lost,

  To find him once again, but once again!

  His wrath came on us to the uttermost,

  His covenanted and most righteous wrath.

  Yet this is He of Whom we made our boast,

  Who lit the Fiery Pillar in our path,