Or, better than any being, were not:
Were nothing at all in all the world,
Not a body and not a soul;
Not so much as a grain of dust
Or drop of water from pole to pole.
Still the world would wag on the same,
Still the seasons go and come;
Blossoms bloom as in days of old,
Cherries ripen and wild bees hum.
None would miss me in all the world,
How much less would care or weep:
I should be nothing; while all the rest
Would wake and weary and fall asleep.
THREE STAGES
1.
I looked for that which is not, nor can be,
And hope deferred made my heart sick in truth;
But years must pass before a hope of youth
Is resigned utterly.
I watched and waited with a steadfast will:
And though the object seemed to flee away
That I so longed for; ever, day by day,
I watched and waited still.
Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more:
My expectation wearies and shall cease;
I will resign it now and be at peace: —
Yet never gave it o’er.
Sometimes I said: It is an empty name
I long for; to a name why should I give
The peace of all the days I have to live? —
Yet gave it all the same.
Alas, thou foolish one! alike unfit
For healthy joy and salutary pain;
Thou knowest the chase useless, and again
Turnest to follow it.
2.
My happy happy dream is finished with,
My dream in which alone I lived so long.
My heart slept — woe is me, it wakeneth;
Was weak — I thought it strong.
Oh weary wakening from a life-true dream:
Oh pleasant dream from which I wake in pain:
I rested all my trust on things that seem,
And all my trust is vain.
I must pull down my palace that I built,
Dig up the pleasure-gardens of my soul;
Must change my laughter to sad tears for guilt,
My freedom to control.
Now all the cherished secrets of my heart,
Now all my hidden hopes are turned to sin:
Part of my life is dead, part sick, and part
Is all on fire within.
The fruitless thought of what I might have been
Haunting me ever will not let me rest:
A cold north wind has withered all my green,
My sun is in the west.
But where my palace stood, with the same stone,
I will uprear a shady hermitage;
And there my spirit shall keep house alone,
Accomplishing its age:
There other garden beds shall lie around
Full of sweet-briar and incense-bearing thyme;
There I will sit, and listen for the sound
Of the last lingering chime.
3.
I thought to deal the death-stroke at a blow,
To give all, once for all, but nevermore; —
Then sit to hear the low waves fret the shore,
Or watch the silent snow.
“Oh rest,” I thought, “in silence and the dark;
Oh rest, if nothing else, from head to feet:
Though I may see no more the poppied wheat,
Or sunny soaring lark.
“These chimes are slow, but surely strike at last;
This sand is slow, but surely droppeth thro’;
And much there is to suffer, much to do,
Before the time be past.
“So will I labor, but will not rejoice:
Will do and bear, but will not hope again;
Gone dead alike to pulses of quick pain,
And pleasure’s counterpoise:”
I said so in my heart, and so I thought
My life would lapse, a tedious monotone:
I thought to shut myself, and dwell alone
Unseeking and unsought.
But first I tired, and then my care grew slack;
Till my heart slumbered, may-be wandered too: —
I felt the sunshine glow again, and knew
The swallow on its track;
All birds awoke to building in the leaves,
All buds awoke to fulness and sweet scent,
Ah, too, my heart woke unawares, intent
On fruitful harvest sheaves.
Full pulse of life, that I had deemed was dead,
Full throb of youth, that I had deemed at rest, —
Alas, I cannot build myself a nest,
I cannot crown my head
With royal purple blossoms for the feast,
Nor flush with laughter, nor exult in song; —
These joys may drift, as time now drifts along;
And cease, as once they ceased.
I may pursue, and yet may not attain,
Athirst and panting all the days I live:
Or seem to hold, yet nerve myself to give
What once I gave, again.
LONG LOOKED FOR
When the eye hardly sees,
And the pulse hardly stirs,
And the heart would scarcely quicken
Though the voice were hers:
Then the longing wasting fever
Will be almost past;
Sleep indeed come back again,
And peace at last.
Not till then, dear friends,
Not till then, most like, most dear,
The dove will fold its wings
To settle here.
Then to all her coldness
I also shall be cold,
Then I also have forgotten
Our happy love of old.
Close mine eyes with care,
Cross my hands upon my breast,
Let shadows and full silence
Tell of rest:
For she yet may look upon me
Too proud to speak, but know
One heart less loves her in the world
Than loved her long ago.
Strew flowers upon the bed
And flowers upon the floor,
Let all be sweet and comely
When she stands at the door:
Fair as a bridal chamber
For her to come into,
When the sunny day is over
At falling of the dew.
If she comes, watch her not
But careless turn aside;
She may weep if left alone
With her beauty and her pride:
She may pluck a leaf perhaps
Or a languid violet
When life and love are finished
And even I forget.
LISTENING
She listened like a cushat dove
That listens to its mate alone;
She listened like a cushat dove
That loves but only one.
Not fair as men would reckon fair,
Nor noble as they count the line;
Only as graceful as a bough
And tendrils of the vine;
Only as noble as sweet Eve
Your ancestress and mine.
And downcast were her dovelike eyes,
And downcast was her tender cheek,
Her pulses fluttered like a dove
To hear him speak.
ZARA
(see Maturin’s Women.)
I dreamed that loving me he would love on
Thro’ life and death into eternity:
I dreamed that love would be and be and be
As surely as the sun shines that once shone.
Now even that my dream is killed and gone,
It sometimes even now returns to me;
Not what it was, but half being memory,
And half the pain that wea
rs my cheek so wan.
Oh bitter pain, what drug will lull the pain?
Oh lying memory, when shall I forget?
For why should I remember him in vain
Who hath forgotten and rejoiceth still?
Oh bitter memory, while my heart is set
Oh love that gnaws and gnaws and cannot kill.
THE LAST LOOK
Her face was like an opening rose,
So bright to look upon;
But now it is like fallen snows,
As cold, as dead, as wan.
Heaven lit with stars is more like her
Than is this empty crust;
Deaf, dumb and blind it cannot stir
But crumbles back to dust.
No flower be taken from her bed
For me, no lock be shorn;
I give her up, the early dead,
The dead, the newly born:
If I remember her, no need
Of formal tokens set;
Of hollow token lies, indeed,
No need, if I forget.
I HAVE A MESSAGE UNTO THEE
(written in sickness.)
Green sprout the grasses,
Red blooms the mossy rose,
Blue nods the harebell
Where purple heather blows;
The water lily, silver white,
Is living — fair as light;
Sweet jasmine branches trail
A dusky starry veil:
Each goodly is to see,
Comely in its degree;
I, only I, alas that this should be,
Am ruinously pale.
New year renews the grasses,
The crimson rose renews,
Brings up the breezy bluebell,
Refreshes heath with dews;
Then water lilies ever
Bud fresh upon the river;
Then jasmine lights its star
And spreads its arms afar:
I only in my spring
Can neither bud nor sing;
I find not honey but a sting
Though fair the blossoms are.
For me no downy grasses,
For me no blossoms pluck;
But leave them for the breezes,
For honey bees to suck,
For childish hands to pull
And pile their baskets full:
I will not have a crown
That soon must be laid down;
Trust me: I cannot care
A withering crown to wear,
I who may be immortally made fair
Where autumn turns not brown.
Spring, summer, autumn,
Winter, all will pass,
With tender blossoms
And with fruitful grass.
Sweet days of yore
Will pass to come no more,
Sweet perfumes fly,
Buds languish and go by:
Oh bloom that cannot last,
Oh blossoms quite gone past,
I yet shall feast when you shall fast,
And live when you shall die.
Your workday fully ended,
Your pleasant task being done,
You shall finish with the stars,
The moon and setting sun.
You and these and time
Shall end with the last chime;
For earthly solace given,
But needed not in heaven.
Needed not perhaps
Thro’ the eternal lapse:
Or else, all signs fulfilled,
What you foreshow may yield
Delights thro’ heaven’s own harvest field
With undecaying saps.
Young girls wear flowers,
Young brides a flowery wreath;
But next we plant them
In garden plots of death.
Whose sleep is best? —
The maiden’s curtained rest,
Or bride’s whose hoped for sweet
May yet outstrip her feet? —
Ah, what are such as these
To death’s sufficing ease —
How long and deep that slumber is
Where night and morning meet.
Dear are the blossoms
For bride’s or maiden’s head,
But dearer planted
Around our happy dead.
Those mind us of decay
And joys that slip away;
These preach to us perfection
And endless resurrection.
We make our graveyards fair
For spirit-like birds of air;
For Angels, may be, finding there
Lost Eden’s own delection.
A blessing on the flowers
That God has made so good,
From crops of jealous gardens
To wildlings of a wood.
They show us symbols deep
Of how to sow and reap;
They teach us lessons plain
Of patient harvest gain.
They still are telling of
God’s unimagined love: —
“Oh gift,” they say, “all gifts above,
“Shall it be given in vain? —
“Better you had not seen us
“But shared the blind man’s night,
“Better you had not scented
“Our incense of delight,
“Than only plucked to scorn
“The rosebud for its thorn:
“Not so the instinctive thrush
“Hymns in a holly bush.
“Be wise betimes, and with the bee
“Suck sweets from prickly tree
“To last when earth’s are flown;
“So God well pleased will own
“Your work, and bless not time alone
“But ripe eternity.”
COBWEBS
It is a land with neither night nor day,
Nor heat nor cold, nor any wind, nor rain,
Nor hills nor valleys; but one even plain
Stretches thro’ long unbroken miles away:
While thro’ the sluggish air a twilight grey
Broodeth; no moons or seasons wax and wane,
No ebb and flow are there along the main,
No bud-time no leaf-falling there for aye,
No ripple on the sea, no shifting sand,
No beat of wings to stir the stagnant space,
No pulse of life thro’ all the loveless land:
And loveless sea; no trace of days before,
No guarded home, no toil-won restingplace
No future hope no fear for evermore.
UNFORGOTTEN
Oh unforgotten!
How long ago? one spirit saith:
As long as life even unto death,
The passage of a poor frail breath.
Oh unforgotten:
An unforgotten load of love,
A load of grief all griefs above,
A blank blank nest without its dove.
As long as time is —
No longer? time is but a span
The dalliance space of empty man;
And is this all immortals can? —
Ever and ever,
Beyond all time, beyond all space; —
Now, shadow darkening heart and face, —
Then, glory in a glorious place.
Sad heart and spirit
Bowed now yea broken for a while,
Lagging and toiling mile by mile
Yet pressing toward the eternal smile.
Oh joy eternal! —
Oh youth eternal without flaw! —
Thee not the blessed angels saw
Rapt in august adoring awe.
Not the dead have thee,
Not yet O all surpassing peace;
Not till this veiling world shall cease
And harvest yield its whole increase.
Not the dead know thee,
Not dead nor living nor unborn:
Who in the new sown field at morn
>
Can measure out the harvest corn? —
Yet they shall know thee;
And we with them, and unborn men
With us, shall know and have thee when
The single grain shall wax to ten.
AN AFTERTHOUGHT
Oh lost garden Paradise: —
Were the roses redder there
Than they blossom otherwhere?
Was the night’s delicious shade
More intensely star inlaid?
Who can tell what memories
Of lost beloved Paradise
Saddened Eve with sleepless eyes? —
Fair first mother lulled to rest
In a choicer garden nest,
Curtained with a softer shading
Than thy tenderest child is laid in,
Was the sundawn brighter far
Than our daily sundawns are?
Was that love, first love of all
Warmer, deeper, better worth
Than has warmed poor hearts of earth
Since the utter ruinous fall? —
Ah supremely happy once,
Ah supremely broken hearted
When her tender feet departed
From the accustomed paths of peace:
Catching Angel orisons
For the last last time of all,
Shedding tears that would not cease
For the bitter bitter fall.
Yet the accustomed hand for leading,
Yet the accustomed heart for love;
Sure she kept one part of Eden
Angels could not strip her of.
Sure the fiery messenger
Kindling for his outraged Lord,
Willing with the perfect Will,
Yet rejoiced the flaming sword
Chastening sore but sparing still
Shut her treasure out with her.
What became of Paradise?
Did the cedars droop at all
(Springtide hastening to the fall)
Missing the beloved hand —
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti Page 67