How gracious and how perfecting a grace
Must patience be on which those others wait:
Faith with suspended rapture in her face,
Hope pale and careful hand in hand with fear,
Love — ah, good love who would not antedate
God’s Will, but saith, Good is it to be here.
LORD, GRANT US GRACE TO REST UPON THY WORD
Lord, grant us grace to rest upon Thy word,
To rest in hope until we see Thy Face;
To rest thro’ toil unruffled and unstirred,
Lord, grant us grace.
This burden and this heat wear on apace:
Night comes, when sweeter than night’s singing bird
Will swell the silence of our ended race.
Ah, songs which flesh and blood have never heard
And cannot hear, songs of the silent place
Where rest remains! Lord, slake our hope deferred,
Lord, grant us grace.
THE WORLD: SELF-DESTRUCTION
CONTENTS
A VAIN SHADOW
LORD, SAVE US, WE PERISH
WHAT IS THIS ABOVE THY HEAD
BABYLON THE GREAT
STANDING AFAR OFF FOR THE FEAR OF HER TORMENT
O LUCIFER, SON OF THE MORNING!
ALAS, ALAS! FOR THE SELF-DESTROYED
AS FROTH ON THE FACE OF THE DEEP
WHERE THEIR WORM DIETH NOT, AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED
TOLL, BELL, TOLL. FOR HOPE IS FLYING
A VAIN SHADOW
The world, — what a world, ah me!
Mouldy, worm-eaten, grey:
Vain as a leaf from a tree,
As a fading day,
As veriest vanity,
As the froth and the spray
Of the hollow-billowed sea,
As what was and shall not be,
As what is and passes away.
LORD, SAVE US, WE PERISH
O Lord, seek us, O Lord, find us
In Thy patient care;
Be Thy Love before, behind us,
Round us, everywhere:
Lest the god of this world blind us,
Lest he speak us fair,
Lest he forge a chain to bind us,
Lest he bait a snare.
Turn not from us, call to mind us,
Find, embrace us, bear;
Be Thy Love before, behind us,
Round us, everywhere.
WHAT IS THIS ABOVE THY HEAD
What is this above thy head,
O Man? —
The World, all overspread
With pearls and golden rays
And gems ablaze;
A sight which day and night
Fills an eye’s span.
What is this beneath thy feet,
O Saint? —
The World, a nauseous sweet
Puffed up and perishing;
A hollow thing,
A lie, a vanity,
Tinsel and paint.
What is she while time is time,
O Man? —
In a perpetual prime
Beauty and youth she hath;
And her footpath
Breeds flowers thro’ dancing hours
Since time began.
While time lengthens what is she,
O Saint? —
Nought: yea, all men shall see
How she is nought at all,
When her death-pall
Of fire ends their desire
And brands her taint.
Ah, poor Man, befooled and slow
And faint!
Ah, poorest Man, if so
Thou turn thy back on bliss
And choose amiss!
For thou art choosing now:
Sinner, — or Saint.
BABYLON THE GREAT
Foul is she and ill-favored, set askew:
Gaze not upon her till thou dream her fair,
Lest she should mesh thee in her wanton hair,
Adept in arts grown old yet ever new.
Her heart lusts not for love, but thro’ and thro’
For blood, as spotted panther lusts in lair;
No wine is in her cup, but filth is there
Unutterable, with plagues hid out of view.
Gaze not upon her, for her dancing whirl
Turns giddy the fixed gazer presently:
Gaze not upon her, lest thou be as she
When, at the far end of her long desire,
Her scarlet vest and gold and gem and pearl
And she amid her pomp are set on fire.
STANDING AFAR OFF FOR THE FEAR OF HER TORMENT
Is this the end? is there no end but this?
Yea, none beside:
No other end for pride
And foulness and besottedness.
Hath she no friend? hath she no clinging friend?
Nay, none at all;
Who stare upon her fall
Quake for themselves with hair on end.
Will she be done away? vanish away?
Yea, like a dream;
Yea, like the shades that seem
Somewhat, and lo! are nought by day.
Alas for her amid man’s helpless moan,
Alas for her!
She hath no comforter:
In solitude of fire she sits alone.
O LUCIFER, SON OF THE MORNING!
Of fallen star! a darkened light,
A glory hurtled from its car,
Self-blasted from the holy height:
Oh fallen star!
Fallen beyond earth’s utmost bar,
Beyond return, beyond far sight
Of outmost glimmering nebular.
Now blackness, which once walked in white;
Now death, whose life once glowed afar;
Oh son of dawn that loved the night,
Oh fallen star!
ALAS, ALAS! FOR THE SELF-DESTROYED
Alas, alas! for the self-destroyed
Vanish as images from a glass,
Sink down and die down by hope unbuoyed: —
Alas, alas!
Who shall stay their ruinous mass?
Besotted, reckless, possessed, decoyed,
They hurry to the dolorous pass.
Saints fall a-weeping who would have joyed,
Sore they weep for a glory that was,
For a fulness emptied into the void,
Alas, alas!
AS FROTH ON THE FACE OF THE DEEP
As froth on the face of the deep,
As foam on the crest of the sea,
As dreams at the waking of sleep,
As gourd of a day and a night,
As harvest that no man shall reap,
As vintage that never shall be,
Is hope if it cling not aright,
O my God, unto Thee.
WHERE THEIR WORM DIETH NOT, AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED
In tempest and storm blackness of darkness forever,
A fire unextinguished, a worm’s indestructible swarm;
Where no hope shall ever be more, and love shall be never,
In tempest and storm;
Where the form of all things is fashionless, void of all form;
Where from death that severeth all, the soul cannot sever
In tempest and storm.
TOLL, BELL, TOLL. FOR HOPE IS FLYING
Toll, bell, toll. For hope is flying
Sighing from the earthbound soul:
Life is sighing, life is dying:
Toll, bell, toll.
Gropes in its own grave the mole
Wedding darkness, undescrying,
Tending to no different goal.
Self-slain soul, in vain thy sighing:
Self-slain, who should make thee whole?
Vain the clamour of thy crying:
Toll, bell, toll.
DIVERS WORLDS:TIME AND ETERNITY
CONTENTS
EARTH HAS CLEAR CALL OF DAILY BELLS
&nbs
p; ESCAPE TO THE MOUNTAIN
I LIFT MINE EYES TO SEE: EARTH VANISHETH
YET A LITTLE WHILE
BEHOLD, IT WAS VERY GOOD
WHATSOEVER IS RIGHT, THAT SHALL YE RECEIVE
THIS NEAR-AT-HAND LAND BREEDS PAIN BY MEASURE
WAS THY WRATH AGAINST THE SEA?
AND THERE WAS NO MORE SEA
ROSES ON A BRIER
WE ARE THOSE WHO TREMBLE AT THY WORD
AWAKE, THOU THAT SLEEPEST
WE KNOW NOT WHEN, WE KNOW NOT WHERE
I WILL LIFT UP MINE EYES UNTO THE HILLS
THEN WHOSE SHALL THOSE THINGS BE?
HIS BANNER OVER ME WAS LOVE
BELOVED, YIELD THY TIME TO GOD, FOR HE
TIME SEEMS NOT SHORT
THE HALF MOON SHOWS A FACE OF PLAINTIVE SWEETNESS
AS THE DOVES TO THEIR WINDOWS
OH KNELL OF A PASSING TIME
TIME PASSETH AWAY WITH ITS PLEASURE AND PAIN
THE EARTH SHALL TREMBLE AT THE LOOK OF HIM
TIME LENGTHENING, IN THE LENGTHENING SEEMETH LONG
ALL FLESH IS GRASS
HEAVEN’S CHIMES ARE SLOW, BUT SURE TO STRIKE AT LAST
THERE REMAINETH THEREFORE A REST TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD
PARTING AFTER PARTING
THEY PUT THEIR TRUST IN THEE, AND WERE NOT CONFOUNDED
SHORT IS TIME, AND ONLY TIME IS BLEAK
FOR EACH
FOR ALL
EARTH HAS CLEAR CALL OF DAILY BELLS
Earth has clear call of daily bells,
A chancel-vault of gloom and star,
A rapture where the anthems are,
A thunder when the organ swells:
Alas, man’s daily life — what else? —
Is out of tune with daily bells.
While Paradise accords the chimes
Of Earth and Heaven, its patient pause
Is rest fulfilling music’s laws.
Saints sit and gaze, where oftentimes
Precursive flush of morning climbs
And air vibrates with coming chimes.
ESCAPE TO THE MOUNTAIN
I peered within, and saw a world of sin;
Upward, and saw a world of righteousness;
Downward, and saw darkness and flame begin
Which no man can express.
I girt me up, I gat me up to flee
From face of darkness and devouring flame:
And fled I had, but guilt is loading me
With dust of death and shame.
Yet still the light of righteousness beams pure,
Beams to me from the world of far-off day: —
Lord, Who hast called them happy that endure,
Lord, make me such as they.
I LIFT MINE EYES TO SEE: EARTH VANISHETH
I lift mine eyes to see: earth vanisheth.
I lift up wistful eyes and bend my knee:
Trembling, bowed down, and face to face with Death,
I lift mine eyes to see.
Lo, what I see is Death that shadows me:
Yet whilst I, seeing, draw a shuddering breath,
Death like a mist grows rare perceptibly.
Beyond the darkness light, beyond the scathe
Healing, beyond the Cross a palm-branch tree,
Beyond Death Life, on evidence of faith:
I lift mine eyes to see.
YET A LITTLE WHILE
Heaven is not far, tho’ far the sky
Overarching earth and main.
It takes not long to live and die,
Die, revive, and rise again.
Not long: how long? Oh, long re-echoing song!
O Lord, how long?
BEHOLD, IT WAS VERY GOOD
All things are fair, if we had eyes to see
How first God made them goodly everywhere:
And goodly still in Paradise they be, —
All things are fair.
O Lord, the solemn heavens Thy praise declare;
The multi-fashioned saints bring praise to Thee,
As doves fly home and cast away their care.
As doves on divers branches of their tree,
Perched high or low, sit all contented there
Not mourning anymore; in each degree
All things are fair.
WHATSOEVER IS RIGHT, THAT SHALL YE RECEIVE
When all the overwork of life
Is finished once, and fallen asleep
We shrink no more beneath the knife,
But having sown prepare to reap;
Delivered from the crossway rough,
Delivered from the thorny scourge,
Delivered from the tossing surge,
Then shall we find — (please God!) — it is enough?
Not in this world of hope deferred,
This world of perishable stuff;
Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,
Nor heart conceived that full “enough”:
Here moans the separating sea,
Here harvests fail, here breaks the heart;
There God shall join and no man part,
All one in Christ, so one — (please God!) — with me.
THIS NEAR-AT-HAND LAND BREEDS PAIN BY MEASURE
This near-at-hand land breeds pain by measure:
That far-away land overflows with treasure
Of heaped-up good pleasure.
Our land that we see is befouled by evil:
The land that we see not makes mirth and revel,
Far from death and devil.
This land hath for music sobbing and sighing:
That land hath soft speech and sweet soft replying
Of all loves undying.
This land hath for pastime errors and follies:
That land hath unending unflagging solace
Of full-chanted “Holies.”
Up and away, call the Angels to us;
Come to our home where no foes pursue us,
And no tears bedew us;
Where that which riseth sets again never,
Where that which springeth flows in a river
Forever and ever;
Where harvest justifies labour of sowing,
Where that which budded comes to the blowing
Sweet beyond your knowing.
Come and laugh with us, sing in our singing;
Come, yearn no more, but rest in your clinging.
See what we are bringing;
Crowns like our own crowns, robes for your wearing;
For love of you we kiss them in bearing,
All good with you sharing:
Over you gladdening, in you delighting;
Come from your famine, your failure, your fighting;
Come to full wrong-righting.
Come, where all balm is garnered to ease you;
Come, where all beauty is spread out to please you;
Come, gaze upon Jesu.
WAS THY WRATH AGAINST THE SEA?
The sea laments with unappeasable
Hankering wail of loss,
Lifting its hands on high and passing by
Out of the lovely light:
No foambow any more may crest that swell
Of clamorous waves which toss;
Lifting its hands on high it passes by
From light into the night.
Peace, peace, thou sea! God’s wisdom worketh well,
Assigns it crown or cross:
Lift we all hands on high, and passing by
Attest: God doeth right.
AND THERE WAS NO MORE SEA
Voices from above and from beneath,
Voices of creation near and far,
Voices out of life and out of death,
Out of measureless space,
Sun, moon, star,
In oneness of contentment offering praise.
Heaven and earth and sea jubilant,
Jubilant all things that dwell therein;
Filled to fullest overflow they chant,
Still roll on
ward, swell,
Still begin,
Never flagging praise interminable.
Thou who must fall silent in a while,
Chant thy sweetest, gladdest, best, at once;
Sun thyself today, keep peace and smile;
By love upward send
Orisons,
Accounting love thy lot and love thine end.
ROSES ON A BRIER
Roses on a brier,
Pearls from out the bitter sea,
Such is earth’s desire
However pure it be.
Neither bud nor brier,
Neither pearl nor brine for me:
Be stilled, my long desire;
There shall be no more sea.
Be stilled, my passionate heart;
Old earth shall end, new earth shall be:
Be still, and earn thy part
Where shall be no more sea.
WE ARE THOSE WHO TREMBLE AT THY WORD
We are those who tremble at Thy word;
Who faltering walk in darkness toward our close
Of mortal life, by terrors curbed and spurred:
We are of those.
We journey to that land which no man knows
Who any more can make his voice be heard
Above the clamour of our wants and woes.
Not ours the hearts Thy loftiest love hath stirred,
Not such as we Thy lily and Thy rose: —
Yet, Hope of those who hope with hope deferred,
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti Page 41