Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti

by Christina Rossetti

  K is a Kitten, or quaint Kangaroo.

  L is a Lute or a lovely-toned Lyre;

  L is a Lily all laden with dew.

  M is a Meadow where Meadowsweet blows;

  M is a Mountain made dim by a mist.

  N is a Nut — in a nutshell it grows —

  Or a Nest full of Nightingales singing — oh list!

  O is an Opal, with only one spark;

  O is an Olive, with oil on its skin.

  P is a Pony, a pet in a park;

  P is the Point of a Pen or a Pin.

  Q is a Quail, quick-chirping at morn;

  Q is a Quince quite ripe and near dropping.

  R is a Rose, rosy red on a thorn;

  R is a red-breasted Robin come hopping.

  S is a Snow-storm that sweeps o’er the Sea;

  S is the Song that the swift Swallows sing.

  T is the Tea-table set out for tea;

  T is a Tiger with terrible spring.

  U, the Umbrella, went up in a shower;

  Or Unit is useful with ten to unite.

  V is a Violet veined in the flower;

  V is a Viper of venomous bite.

  W stands for the water-bred Whale;

  Stands for the wonderful Wax-work so gay.

  X, or XX, or XXX is ale,

  Or Policeman X, exercised day after day.

  Y is a yellow Yacht, yellow its boat;

  Y is the Yucca, the Yam, or the Yew.

  Z is a Zebra, zigzagged his coat,

  Or Zebu, or Zoöphyte, seen at the Zoo.

  HUSBAND AND WIFE

  “Oh kiss me once before I go,

  “To make amends for sorrow;

  “Oh kiss me once before we part

  “Who shall not meet tomorrow.

  “And I was wrong to urge your will,

  “And wrong to mar your life;

  “But kiss me once before we part,

  “Because you are my wife.”

  She turned her head and tossed her head

  And puckered up her brow:

  “I never kissed you yet,” said she,

  “And I’ll not kiss you now.

  “Tho’ I’m your wife by might and right

  “And forsworn marriage vow,

  “I never loved you yet,” said she,

  “And I don’t love you now.”

  So he went sailing on the sea,

  And she sat crossed and dumb

  While he went sailing on the sea

  Where the storm winds come.

  He’d been away a month and day

  Counting from morn to morn:

  And many buds had turned to leaves

  And many lambs were born

  And many buds had turned to flowers

  For Spring was in a glow,

  When she was laid upon her bed

  As white and cold as snow.

  “Oh let me kiss my baby once,

  “Once before I die;

  “And bring it sometimes to my grave

  “To teach it where I lie.

  “And tell my husband when he comes

  “Safe home from sea,

  “To love the baby that I leave

  “If ever he loved me:

  “And tell him, not for might or right

  “Or forsworn marriage vow

  “But for the helpless baby’s sake,

  “I would have kissed him now.”

  MICHAEL F. M. ROSSETTI

  Born April 22nd, 1881; Died January 24th, 1883.

  A holy Innocent gone home

  Without so much as one sharp wounding word:

  A blessed Michael in heaven’s lofty dome

  Without a sword.

  ================

  Brief dawn and noon and setting time!

  Our rapid-rounding moon has fled:

  A black eclipse before the prime

  Has swallowed up that shining head.

  Eternity holds up her lookingglass: —

  The eclipse of Time will pass,

  And all that lovely light return to sight.

  ================

  I watch the showers and think of flowers:

  Alas, my flower that shows no fruit!

  My snowdrop plucked, my daisy shoot

  Plucked from the root.

  Soon Spring will shower, the world will flower,

  A world of buds will promise fruit,

  Pear trees will shoot and apples shoot

  Sound at the root.

  Bud of an hour, far off you flower;

  My bud, far off you ripen fruit;

  My prettiest bud, my straightest shoot

  Sweet at the root.

  ================

  The youngest bud of five,

  The least lamb of the fold, —

  Bud not to blossom, yet to thrive

  Away from cold.

  Lamb which we shall not see

  Leap at its pretty pranks,

  Our lamb at rest and full of glee

  On heavenly banks.

  A SICK CHILD’S MEDITATION

  Pain and weariness, aching eyes and head,

  Pain and weariness all the day and night:

  Yet the pillow’s soft on my smooth soft bed,

  And fresh air blows in, and mother shades the light.

  Thou, O Lord, in pain hadst no pillow soft,

  In Thy weary pain, in Thine agony:

  But a cross of shame held Thee up aloft

  Where Thy very mother could do nought for Thee.

  I would gaze on Thee, on Thy patient face;

  Make me like Thyself, patient, sweet, at peace;

  Make my days all love, and my nights all praise,

  Till all days and nights and patient sufferings cease.

  LOVE IS ALL HAPPINESS, LOVE IS ALL BEAUTY

  Love is all happiness, love is all beauty,

  Love is the crown of flaxen heads and hoary,

  Love is the only everlasting duty,

  And love is chronicled in endless story

  And kindles endless glory.

  A HANDY MOLE WHO PLIED NO SHOVEL

  A handy Mole who plied no shovel

  To excavate his vaulted hovel,

  While hard at work met in mid-furrow

  An Earthworm boring out his burrow.

  Our Mole had dined and must grow thinner

  Before he gulped a second dinner,

  And on no other terms cared he

  To meet a worm of low degree.

  The Mole turned on his blindest eye

  Passing that base mechanic by;

  The Worm entrenched in actual blindness

  Ignored or kindness or unkindness;

  Each wrought his own exclusive tunnel

  To reach his own exclusive funnel.

  A plough its flawless track pursuing

  Involved them in one common ruin.

  Where now the mine and countermine,

  The dined-on and the one to dine?

  The impartial ploughshare of extinction

  Annulled them all without distinction.

  ONE SWALLOW DOES NOT MAKE A SUMMER

  A Rose which spied one swallow

  Made haste to blush and blow:

  Others are sure to follow:

  Ah no, not so!

  The wandering clouds still owe

  A few fresh flakes of snow,

  Chill fog must fill the hollow,

  Before the bird-stream flow

  In flood across the main

  And winter’s woe

  End in glad summer come again.

  Then thousand flowers may blossom by the shore,

  But that Rose never more.

  CONTEMPTUOUS OF HIS HOME BEYOND

  Contemptuous of his home beyond

  The village and the village pond,

  A large-souled Frog who spurned each byeway,

  Hopped along the imperial highway.

  Nor grunting pig nor barking dog

  Could disconcert so great a
frog.

  The morning dew was lingering yet

  His sides to cool, his tongue to wet;

  The night dew when the night should come

  A travelled frog would send him home.

  Not so, alas! the wayside grass

  Sees him no more: — not so, alas!

  A broadwheeled waggon unawares

  Ran him down, his joys, his cares.

  From dying choke one feeble croak

  The Frog’s perpetual silence broke:

  “Ye buoyant Frogs, ye great and small,

  Even I am mortal after all.

  My road to Fame turns out a wry way:

  I perish on this hideous highway, —

  Oh for my old familiar byeway!”

  The choking Frog sobbed and was gone:

  The wagoner strode whistling on.

  Unconscious of the carnage done,

  Whistling that wagoner strode on,

  Whistling (it may have happened so)

  “A Froggy would a-wooing go:”

  A hypothetic frog trolled he

  Obtuse to a reality.

  O rich and poor, O great and small,

  Such oversights beset us all:

  The mangled frog abides incog,

  The uninteresting actual frog;

  The hypothetic frog alone

  Is the one frog we dwell upon.

  A WORD FOR THE DUMB

  Pity the sorrows of a poor old Dog

  Who wags his tail a-begging in his need:

  Despise not even the sorrows of a Frog,

  God’s creature too, and that’s enough to plead:

  Spare Puss who trusts us purring on our hearth:

  Spare Bunny once so frisky and so free:

  Spare all the harmless tenants of the earth:

  Spare, and be spared: — or who shall plead for thee?

  CARDINAL NEWMAN

  “In the grave, whither thou goest.”

  O weary Champion of the Cross, lie still:

  Sleep thou at length the all-embracing sleep:

  Long was thy sowing day, rest now and reap:

  Thy fast was long, feast now thy spirit’s fill.

  Yea, take thy fill of love, because thy will

  Chose love not in the shallows but the deep:

  Thy tides were springtides, set against the neap

  Of calmer souls: thy flood rebuked their rill.

  Now night has come to thee — please God, of rest:

  So some time must it come to every man;

  To first and last, where many last are first.

  Now fixed and finished thine eternal plan,

  Thy best has done its best, thy worst its worst:

  Thy best its best, please God, thy best its best.

  AN ECHO FROM WILLOWWOOD

  “O ye, all ye that walk in Willowwood.”

  D. G. Rossetti.

  Two gazed into a pool, he gazed and she,

  Not hand in hand, yet heart in heart, I think,

  Pale and reluctant on the water’s brink,

  As on the brink of parting which must be.

  Each eyed the other’s aspect, she and he,

  Each felt one hungering heart leap up and sink,

  Each tasted bitterness which both must drink,

  There on the brink of life’s dividing sea.

  Lilies upon the surface, deep below

  Two wistful faces craving each for each,

  Resolute and reluctant without speech: —

  A sudden ripple made the faces flow

  One moment joined, to vanish out of reach:

  So those hearts joined, and ah! were parted so.

  YEA, I HAVE A GOODLY HERITAGE

  My vineyard that is mine I have to keep,

  Pruning for fruit the pleasant twigs and leaves.

  Tend thou thy cornfield: one day thou shalt reap

  In joy thy ripened sheaves.

  Or if thine be an orchard, graft and prop

  Food-bearing trees each watered in its place:

  Or if a garden, let it yield for crop

  Sweet herbs and herb of grace.

  But if my lot be sand where nothing grows? —

  Nay, who hath said it? Tune a thankful psalm:

  For tho’ thy desert bloom not as the rose,

  It yet can rear thy palm.

  A DEATH OF A FIRST-BORN

  January 14th, 1892.

  One young life lost, two happy young lives blighted,

  With earthward eyes we see:

  With eyes uplifted, keener, farther-sighted,

  We look, O Lord, to Thee.

  Grief hears a funeral knell: hope hears the ringing

  Of birthday bells on high;

  Faith, hope, and love make answer with soft singing,

  Half carol and half cry.

  Stoop to console us, Christ, Sole Consolation,

  While dust returns to dust;

  Until that blessed day when all Thy Nation

  Shall rise up of the Just.

  FAINT, YET PURSUING

  1.

  Beyond this shadow and this turbulent sea,

  Shadow of death and turbulent sea of death,

  Lies all we long to have or long to be: —

  Take heart, tired man, toil on with lessening breath,

  Lay violent hands on heaven’s high treasury,

  Be what you long to be thro’ life-long scathe:

  A little while hope leans on charity,

  A little while charity heartens faith.

  A little while: and then what further while?

  One while that ends not and that wearies not,

  For ever new whilst evermore the same:

  All things made new bear each a sweet new name;

  Man’s lot of death has turned to life his lot,

  And tearful charity to love’s own smile.

  2.

  Press onward, quickened souls, who mounting move,

  Press onward, upward, fire with mounting fire;

  Gathering volume of untold desire

  Press upward, homeward, dove with mounting dove.

  Point me the excellent way that leads above;

  Woo me with sequent will, me too to aspire;

  With sequent heart to follow higher and higher,

  To follow all who follow on to love.

  Up the high steep, across the golden sill,

  Up out of shadows into very light,

  Up out of dwindling life to life aglow,

  I watch you, my beloved, out of sight; —

  Sight fails me, and my heart is watching still:

  My heart fails, yet I follow on to know.

  WHAT WILL IT BE, O MY SOUL, WHAT WILL IT BE

  What will it be, O my soul, what will it be

  To touch the long-raced-for goal, to handle and see,

  To rest in the joy of joys, in the joy of the blest,

  To rest and revive and rejoice, to rejoice and to rest!

  LORD, THOU ART FULNESS, I AM EMPTINESS

  Lord, Thou art fulness, I am emptiness:

  Yet hear my heart speak in its speechlessness

  Extolling Thine unuttered loveliness.

  O LORD, I CANNOT PLEAD MY LOVE OF THEE

  O Lord, I cannot plead my love of Thee:

  I plead Thy love of me; —

  The shallow conduit hails the unfathomed sea.

  FAITH AND HOPE ARE WINGS TO LOVE

  Faith and Hope are wings to Love,

  Silver wings to golden dove.

  A SORROWFUL SIGH OF A PRISONER

  Lord, comest Thou to me?

  My heart is cold and dead:

  Alas that such a heart should be

  The place to lay Thy head!

  I SIT A QUEEN, AND AM NO WIDOW, AND SHALL SEE NO SORROW

  “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow” —

  Yea, scarlet woman, today: but not yea at all tomorrow.

  Scarlet queen on a scarlet throne all today without sorrow,


  Bethink thee: today must end; there is no end of tomorrow.

  PASSING AWAY THE BLISS

  Passing away the bliss,

  The anguish passing away:

  Thus it is

  Today.

  Clean past away the sorrow,

  The pleasure brought back to stay:

  Thus and this

  Tomorrow.

  LOVE BUILDS A NEST ON EARTH AND WAITS FOR REST

  Love builds a nest on earth and waits for rest,

  Love sends to heaven the warm heart from its breast,

  Looks to be blest and is already blest,

  And testifies: “God’s Will is alway best.”

  JESUS ALONE: — IF THUS IT WERE TO ME

  Jesus alone: — if thus it were to me;

  Yet thus it cannot be;

  Lord, I have all things if I have but Thee.

  Jesus and all: — precious His bounties are,

  Yet He more precious far;

  Day’s-eyes are many, one the Morning Star.

  Jesus my all: — so let me rest in love,

  Thy peaceable poor dove,

  Some time below till timeless time above.

  THE WAY OF THE WORLD

  A boat that sails upon the sea;

  Sails far and far and far away:

  Who sail in her sing songs of glee,