His notes are all for me,
For me his mirth: —
Till some day I shall see
Beautiful flowers
And birds in bowers
Where all Joy Bells are ringing.
A PAGEANT AND OTHER POEMS
CONTENTS
SONNETS ARE FULL OF LOVE, AND THIS MY TOME
THE KEY-NOTE
PASTIME
ITALIA, IO TI SALUTO!
MIRRORS OF LIFE AND DEATH
A BALLAD OF BODING
YET A LITTLE WHILE
HE AND SHE
MONNA INNOMINATA
LUSCIOUS AND SORROWFUL
DE PROFUNDIS
TEMPUS FUGIT
GOLDEN GLORIES
JOHNNY
HOLLOW-SOUNDING AND MYSTERIOUS
MAIDEN MAY
TILL TOMORROW
DEATH-WATCHES
TOUCHING NEVER
BRANDONS BOTH
A LIFE’S PARALLELS
AT LAST
GOLDEN SILENCES
IN THE WILLOW SHADE
FLUTTERED WINGS
A FISHER-WIFE
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
MARIANA
MEMENTO MORI
ONE FOOT ON SEA, AND ONE ON SHORE
BUDS AND BABIES
BOY JOHNNY
FREAKS OF FASHION
AN OCTOBER GARDEN
SUMMER IS ENDED
PASSING AND GLASSING
I WILL ARISE
A PRODIGAL SON
SOEUR LOUISE DE LA MISÉRICORDE
AN IMMURATA SISTER
IF THOU SAYEST, BEHOLD, WE KNEW IT NOT
THE THREAD OF LIFE
AN OLD-WORLD THICKET
ALL THY WORKS PRAISE THEE, O LORD
LATER LIFE: A DOUBLE SONNET OF SONNETS
FOR THINE OWN SAKE, O MY GOD
UNTIL THE DAY BREAK
OF HIM THAT WAS READY TO PERISH
BEHOLD THE MAN!
THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS
IT IS FINISHED
AN EASTER CAROL
BEHOLD A SHAKING
ALL SAINTS
TAKE CARE OF HIM
A MARTYR
WHY?
LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH
BIRCHINGTON CHURCHYARD
ONE SEA-SIDE GRAVE
BROTHER BRUIN
A HELPMEET FOR HIM
A SONG OF FLIGHT
A WINTRY SONNET
RESURGAM
TODAY’S BURDEN
THERE IS A BUDDING MORROW IN MIDNIGHT
EXULTATE DEO
A HOPE CAROL
CHRISTMAS CAROLS
WHOSO HEARS A CHIMING FOR CHRISTMAS AT THE NIGHEST
A HOLY, HEAVENLY CHIME
LO! NEWBORN JESUS
A CANDLEMAS DIALOGUE
MARY MAGDALENE AND THE OTHER MARY
PATIENCE OF HOPE
SONNETS ARE FULL OF LOVE, AND THIS MY TOME
Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstar while I go and come.
And so because you love me, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:
In you not fourscore years can dim the flame
Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws
Of time and change and mortal life and death.
THE KEY-NOTE
Where are the songs I used to know,
Where are the notes I used to sing?
I have forgotten everything
I used to know so long ago;
Summer has followed after Spring;
Now Autumn is so shrunk and sere,
I scarcely think a sadder thing
Can be the Winter of my year.
Yet Robin sings through Winter’s rest,
When bushes put their berries on;
While they their ruddy jewels don,
He sings out of a ruddy breast;
The hips and haws and ruddy breast
Make one spot warm where snowflakes lie
They break and cheer the unlovely rest
Of Winter’s pause — and why not I?
THE MONTHS: A PAGEANT
PERSONIFICATIONS.
Boys. Girls.
January. February.
March. April.
July. May.
August. June.
October. September.
December. November.
Robin Redbreasts; Lambs and Sheep; Nightingale and Nestlings.
Various Flowers, Fruits, etc.
Scene: A Cottage with its Grounds.
[A room in a large comfortable cottage; a fire burning on the hearth; a table on which the breakfast things have been left standing. January discovered seated by the fire.]
JANUARY.
Cold the day and cold the drifted snow,
Dim the day until the cold dark night.
[Stirs the fire.]
Crackle, sparkle, fagot; embers glow:
Some one may be plodding through the snow
Longing for a light,
For the light that you and I can show.
If no one else should come,
Here Robin Redbreast’s welcome to a crumb,
And never troublesome:
Robin, why don’t you come and fetch your crumb?
Here’s butter for my hunch of bread,
And sugar for your crumb;
Here’s room upon the hearthrug,
If you’ll only come.
In your scarlet waistcoat,
With your keen bright eye,
Where are you loitering?
Wings were made to fly!
Make haste to breakfast,
Come and fetch your crumb,
For I’m as glad to see you
As you are glad to come.
[Two Robin Redbreasts are seen tapping with their beaks at the lattice, which January opens. The birds flutter in, hop about the floor, and peck up the crumbs and sugar thrown to them. They have scarcely finished their meal, when a knock is heard at the door. January hangs a guard in front of the fire, and opens to February, who appears with a bunch of snowdrops in her hand.]
JANUARY.
Good-morrow, sister.
FEBRUARY.
Brother, joy to you!
I’ve brought some snowdrops; only just a few,
But quite enough to prove the world awake,
Cheerful and hopeful in the frosty dew
And for the pale sun’s sake.
[She hands a few of her snowdrops to January, who retires into the background. While February stands arranging the remaining snowdrops in a glass of water on the window-sill, a soft butting and bleating are heard outside. She opens the door, and sees one foremost lamb, with other sheep and lambs bleating and crowding towards her.]
FEBRUARY.
O you, you little wonder, come — come in,
You wonderful, you woolly soft white lamb:
You panting mother ewe, come too,
And lead that tottering twin
Safe in:
Bring all your bleating kith and kin,
Except the horny ram.
[February opens a second door in the background, and the little flock files through into a warm and sheltered compartment out of sight.]
The lambkin tottering in its walk
With just a fleece to wear;
The snowdrop drooping on its stalk
So slender, —
Snowdrop and lamb, a pretty pair,
Braving the cold for our delight,
Both white,
Both tender.
[A rattling of doors a
nd windows; branches seen without, tossing violently to and fro.]
How the doors rattle, and the branches sway!
Here’s brother March comes whirling on his way
With winds that eddy and sing.
[She turns the handle of the door, which bursts open, and discloses March hastening up, both hands full of violets and anemones.]
FEBRUARY.
Come, show me what you bring;
For I have said my say, fulfilled my day,
And must away.
MARCH.
[Stopping short on the threshold.]
I blow an arouse
Through the world’s wide house
To quicken the torpid earth:
Grappling I fling
Each feeble thing,
But bring strong life to the birth.
I wrestle and frown,
And topple down;
I wrench, I rend, I uproot;
Yet the violet
Is born where I set
The sole of my flying foot,
[Hands violets and anemones to February, who retires into the background.]
And in my wake
Frail wind-flowers quake,
And the catkins promise fruit.
I drive ocean ashore
With rush and roar,
And he cannot say me nay:
My harpstrings all
Are the forests tall,
Making music when I play.
And as others perforce,
So I on my course
Run and needs must run,
With sap on the mount
And buds past count
And rivers and clouds and sun,
With seasons and breath
And time and death
And all that has yet begun.
[Before March has done speaking, a voice is heard approaching accompanied by a twittering of birds. April comes along singing, and stands outside and out of sight to finish her song.]
APRIL.
[Outside.]
Pretty little three
Sparrows in a tree,
Light upon the wing;
Though you cannot sing
You can chirp of Spring:
Chirp of Spring to me,
Sparrows, from your tree.
Never mind the showers,
Chirp about the flowers
While you build a nest:
Straws from east and west,
Feathers from your breast,
Make the snuggest bowers
In a world of flowers.
You must dart away
From the chosen spray,
You intrusive third
Extra little bird;
Join the unwedded herd!
These have done with play,
And must work today.
APRIL.
[Appearing at the open door.]
Good-morrow and good-bye: if others fly,
Of all the flying months you’re the most flying.
MARCH.
You’re hope and sweetness, April.
APRIL.
Birth means dying,
As wings and wind mean flying;
So you and I and all things fly or die;
And sometimes I sit sighing to think of dying.
But meanwhile I’ve a rainbow in my showers,
And a lapful of flowers,
And these dear nestlings aged three hours;
And here’s their mother sitting,
Their father’s merely flitting
To find their breakfast somewhere in my bowers.
[As she speaks April shows March her apron full of flowers and nest full of birds. March wanders away into the grounds. April, without entering the cottage, hangs over the hungry nestlings watching them.]
APRIL.
What beaks you have, you funny things,
What voices shrill and weak;
Who’d think that anything that sings
Could sing through such a beak?
Yet you’ll be nightingales one day,
And charm the country-side,
When I’m away and far away
And May is queen and bride.
[May arrives unperceived by April, and gives her a kiss. April starts and looks round.]
APRIL.
Ah May, good-morrow May, and so good-bye.
MAY.
That’s just your way, sweet April, smile and sigh:
Your sorrow’s half in fun,
Begun and done
And turned to joy while twenty seconds run.
I’ve gathered flowers all as I came along,
At every step a flower
Fed by your last bright shower, —
[She divides an armful of all sorts of flowers with April, who strolls away through the garden.]
MAY.
And gathering flowers I listened to the song
Of every bird in bower.
The world and I are far too full of bliss
To think or plan or toil or care;
The sun is waxing strong,
The days are waxing long,
And all that is,
Is fair.
Here are my buds of lily and of rose,
And here’s my namesake-blossom, may;
And from a watery spot
See here forget-me-not,
With all that blows
Today.
Hark to my linnets from the hedges green,
Blackbird and lark and thrush and dove,
And every nightingale
And cuckoo tells its tale,
And all they mean
Is love.
[June appears at the further end of the garden, coming slowly towards May, who, seeing her, exclaims]
MAY.
Surely you’re come too early, sister June.
JUNE.
Indeed I feel as if I came too soon
To round your young May moon
And set the world a-gasping at my noon.
Yet come I must. So here are strawberries
Sun-flushed and sweet, as many as you please;
And here are full-blown roses by the score,
More roses, and yet more.
[May, eating strawberries, withdraws among the flower beds.]
JUNE.
The sun does all my long day’s work for me,
Raises and ripens everything;
I need but sit beneath a leafy tree
And watch and sing.
[Seats herself in the shadow of a laburnum.]
Or if I’m lulled by note of bird and bee,
Or lulled by noontide’s silence deep,
I need but nestle down beneath my tree
And drop asleep.
[June falls asleep; and is not awakened by the voice of July, who behind the scenes is heard half singing, half calling.]
JULY.
[Behind the scenes.]
Blue flags, yellow flags, flags all freckled,
Which will you take? yellow, blue, speckled!
Take which you will, speckled, blue, yellow,
Each in its way has not a fellow.
[Enter July, a basket of many-colored irises slung upon his shoulders, a bunch of ripe grass in one hand, and a plate piled full of peaches balanced upon the other. He steals up to June, and tickles her with the grass. She wakes.]
JUNE.
What, here already?
JULY.
Nay, my tryst is kept;
The longest day slipped by you while you slept.
I’ve brought you one curved pyramid of bloom,
[Hands her the plate.]
Not flowers, but peaches, gathered where the bees,
As downy, bask and boom
In sunshine and in gloom of trees.
But get you in, a storm is at my heels;
The whirlwind whistles and wheels,
Lightning flashes and thunder peals,
Flying and following hard upon my heels.
[June takes shelte
r in a thickly-woven arbor.]
JULY.
The roar of a storm sweeps up
From the east to the lurid west,
The darkening sky, like a cup,
Is filled with rain to the brink;
The sky is purple and fire,
Blackness and noise and unrest;
The earth, parched with desire,
Opens her mouth to drink.
Send forth thy thunder and fire,
Turn over thy brimming cup,
O sky, appease the desire
Of earth in her parched unrest;
Pour out drink to her thirst,
Her famishing life lift up;
Make thyself fair as at first,
With a rainbow for thy crest.
Have done with thunder and fire,
O sky with the rainbow crest;
O earth, have done with desire,
Drink, and drink deep, and rest.
[Enter August, carrying a sheaf made up of different kinds of grain.]
JULY.
Hail, brother August, flushed and warm
And scatheless from my storm.
Your hands are full of corn, I see,
As full as hands can be:
And earth and air both smell as sweet as balm
In their recovered calm,
And that they owe to me.
[July retires into a shrubbery.]
AUGUST.
Wheat sways heavy, oats are airy,
Barley bows a graceful head,
Short and small shoots up canary,
Each of these is some one’s bread;
Bread for man or bread for beast,
Or at very least
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti Page 23