Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti

by Christina Rossetti

  Tho’ your lips speak it’s her voice I flush to hear so plain

  Say: Love you? yes I love you, love can neither change nor wane.

  But, you ask, “why struggle? I have given you up:

  Take again your pledges, snap the cord and break the cup:

  Feast you with your temptation for I in heaven will sup.” —

  Can I bear to think upon you strong to break not bend,

  Pale with inner intense passion silent to the end,

  Bear to leave you, bear to grieve you, O my dove my friend?

  One short pang and you would rise a light in heaven

  While we grovelled in the darkness mean and unforgiven

  Tho’ our cup of love brimmed sevenfold crowns of love were seven.

  What shall I choose, what can I for you and her and me;

  With you the haven of rest, with her the tossing miry sea;

  Time’s love with her, or choose with you love’s all eternity. —

  Nay, you answer coldly yet with a quivering voice:

  That is over, doubt and struggle, we have sealed our choice;

  Leave me to my contentment vivid with fresh hopes and joys.

  Listening so, I hide mine eyes and fancy years to come:

  You cherished in another home with no cares burdensome;

  You straitened in a windingsheet pulseless at peace and dumb.

  So I fancy — The new love has driven the old away;

  She has found a dearer shelter a dearer stronger stay;

  Perhaps now she would thank me for the freedom of that day.

  Open house and heart barred to me alone the door;

  Children bound to meet her, babies crow before; —

  Blessed wife and blessed mother whom I may see no more.

  Or I fancy — In the grave her comely body lies;

  She is ‘tiring for the Bridegroom till the morning star shall rise,

  Then to shine a glory in the nuptials of the skies.

  No more yearning tenderness, no more pale regret,

  She will not look for me when the marriage guests are set,

  She joys with joy eternal as we had never met.

  I would that one of us were dead, were gone no more to meet,

  Or she and I were dead together stretched here at your feet,

  That she and I were strained together in one winding sheet:

  Hidden away from all the world upon this bitter morn;

  Hidden from all the scornful world, from all your keener scorn;

  Secure and secret in the dark as blessed babe unborn.

  A pitiless fiend is in your eyes to tempt me and to taunt:

  If you were dead I verily believe that you would haunt

  The home you loved, the man you loved, you said you loved — avaunt.

  Why do you face me with those eyes so calm they drive me mad,

  Too proud to droop before me and own that you are sad?

  Why have you a lofty angel made me mean and cursed and bad?

  How have you the heart to face me with that passion in your stare

  Deathly silent? weep before me, rave at me in your despair —

  If you keep patience wings will spring and a halo from your hair.

  Yet what matters — yea what matters? your frenzy can but mock:

  You do not hold my heart’s life key to lock and to unlock,

  The door will not unclose to you tho’ long you wait and knock.

  Have I wronged you? nay not I nor she in deed or will:

  You it is alone that mingle the venomous cup and fill;

  Why are you so little lovely that I cannot love you still? —

  One pulse, one tone, one ringlet of her’s outweighs the whole

  Of you, your puny graces puny body puny soul:

  You but a taste of sweetness, she an overrunning bowl.

  Did I make you, that you blame me because you are not the best?

  Not so, be wise, take patience, turn away and be at rest:

  Shall I not know her lovelier who is far loveliest? —

  See now how proud you are, like us after all, no saint;

  Not so upright but that you are bowed with the old bent;

  White at white-heat, tainted with the devil’s special taint.

  Sit you still and wring the cup drop after loathsome drop:

  You have let loose a torrent it is not you can stop;

  You have sowed a noisome field-ful, now reap the stinging crop.

  Did you think to sit in safety, to watch me torn and tost

  Struggling like a mad dog, watch her tempting doubly lost?

  Howl you, you wretched woman, for your flimsy hopes are crost.

  Be still, tho’ you may writhe you shall hear the branding truth:

  You who thought to sit in judgment on our souls forsooth,

  To sit in frigid judgment on our ripe luxuriant youth.

  Did I love you? never from the first cold day to this;

  You are not sufficient for my aim of life, my bliss;

  You are not sufficient, but I found the one that is.

  The wine of love that warms me from this life’s mortal chill:

  Drunk with love I drink again, a thirst I drink my fill;

  Lapped in love I care not doth it make alive or kill.

  Then did I never love you? — ah the sting struck home at last;

  You are drooping, fainting, dying — the worst of death is past;

  A light is on your face from the nearing heaven forecast.

  Never? — yes I loved you then; I loved: the word still charms: —

  For the first time last time lie here in my heart my arms,

  For the first last time as if I shielded you from harms.

  I trampled you, poor dove, to death; you clung to me, I spurned;

  I taunted you, I tortured you, while you sat still and yearned: —

  Oh lesson taught in anguish but in double anguish learned.

  For after all I loved you, loved you then, I love you yet.

  Listen love I love you: see, the seal of truth is set

  On my face in tears — you cannot see? then feel them wet.

  Pause at heaven’s dear gate, look back, one moment back to grieve;

  You go home thro’ death to life; but I, I still must live:

  On the threshold of heaven’s love, O love can you forgive? —

  Fully freely fondly, with heart truth above an oath,

  With eager utter pardon given unasked and nothing loth,

  Heaping coals of fire upon our heads forgiving both.

  One word more — not one: one look more — too late too late: —

  Lapped in love she sleeps who was lashed with scorn and hate;

  Nestling in the lap of love the dove has found a mate.

  Night has come, the night of rest; day will come, that day:

  To her glad dawn of glory kindled from the deathless ray;

  To us a searching fire and strict balances to weigh.

  The tearless tender eyes are closed, the tender lips are dumb:

  I shall not see or hear them more until that day shall come:

  Then they must speak, what will they say — what then will be the sum? —

  Shall we stand upon the left and she upon the right —

  We smirched with endless death and shame, she glorified in white:

  Will she sound our accusation in intolerable light?

  Be open-armed to us in love — type of another Love —

  As she forgave us once below will she forgive above,

  Enthroned to all eternity our sister friend and dove? —

  NOW THEY DESIRE

  There is a sleep we have not slept

  Safe in a bed unknown;

  There hearts are staunched that long have wept

  Alone, or bled alone:

  Sweet sleep that dreams not, or whose dream

  Is foretaste of the truth;

  Sweet sleep whose sweets are what they seem

>   Refreshing more than youth.

  There is a sea whose waters clear

  Are never tempest tost;

  There is a home whose children dear

  Are saved, not one is lost:

  There Cherubim and Seraphim

  And Angels dwell with Saints,

  Whose lustre no more dwindleth dim,

  Whose ardour never faints.

  There is a Love Which fills desire

  And can our love requite;

  Like fire It draws our lesser fire,

  Like greater light our light:

  For It we agonize in strife

  We yearn we famish thus —

  Lo, in the far off land of life

  Doth It not yearn for us? —

  “Oh fair oh fair Jerusalem,”

  How fair how far away,

  When shall we see thy Jasper Gem

  That gives thee light for day?

  Thy sea of glass like fire, thy streets

  Of glass like virgin gold,

  Thy royal Elders on their seats,

  Thy four Beasts manifold? —

  Fair city of delights, the bride

  In raiment white and clean,

  When shall we see thee loving eyed,

  Sun girdled, happy Queen?

  Without a wrinkle or a spot,

  Blood cleansed, blood purchased once:

  In how fair ground is fallen the lot

  Of all thy happy sons.

  Dove’s eyes beneath thy parted lock,

  A dove’s soft voice is thine;

  Thy nest is safe within the Rock,

  Safe in the Very Vine;

  Thy walls salvation buildeth them

  And all thy gates are praise

  Oh fair oh fair Jerusalem

  In sevenfold day of days.

  A CHRISTMAS CAROL, FOR MY GODCHILDREN

  The shepherds had an angel,

  The wise men had a star,

  But what have I, a little child,

  To guide me home from far,

  Where glad stars sing together

  And singing angels are? —

  Lord Jesus is my Guardian,

  So I can nothing lack:

  The lambs lie in His Bosom

  Along life’s dangerous track;

  The wilful lambs that go astray

  He bleeding fetches back.

  Lord Jesus is my Guiding Star,

  My Beacon Light in heaven:

  He leads me step by step along

  The path of life uneven;

  He, True Light, leads me to that land

  Whose day shall be as seven.

  Those shepherds thro’ the lonely night

  Sat watching by their sheep,

  Until they saw the heavenly host

  Who neither tire nor sleep

  All singing ‘Glory glory’

  In festival they keep.

  Christ watches me His little lamb,

  Cares for me day and night,

  That I may be His Own in heaven:

  So angels clad in white

  Shall sing their ‘Glory, glory’

  For my sake in the height.

  The wise men left their country

  To journey morn by morn

  With gold and frankincense and myrrh

  Because the Lord was born:

  God sent a star to guide them

  And sent a dream to warn.

  My life is like their journey,

  Their star is like God’s Book,

  I must be like those good wise men

  With heavenward heart and look:

  But shall I give no gifts to God? —

  What precious gifts they took.

  Lord I will give my love to Thee,

  Than gold much costlier,

  Sweeter to Thee than frankincense,

  More prized than choicest myrrh:

  Lord make me dearer day by day,

  Day by day holier.

  Nearer and dearer day by day:

  Till I my voice unite

  And sing my ‘Glory, glory’

  With angels clad in white,

  All ‘Glory, glory’ given to Thee

  Thro’ all the heavenly height.

  NOT YOURS BUT YOU

  He died for me: what can I offer Him?

  Toward Him swells incense of perpetual prayer;

  His court wear crowns and aureoles round their hair;

  His ministers are subtle cherubim,

  Ring within ring, white intense seraphim

  Leap like immortal lightnings thro’ the air:

  What shall I offer Him? defiled and bare

  My spirit broken and my brightness dim. —

  Give Me thy youth; — I yield it to Thy rod

  As Thou didst yield Thy prime of youth for me: —

  Give Me thy life; — I give it breath by breath

  As Thou didst give Thy life so give I Thee: —

  Give Me thy love; — So be it, my God, my God,

  As Thou hast loved me even to bitter death.

  AN ANSWER

  [The first page of the MS is missing from the notebook.]

  To make it glad with a goodly crop:

  Even so One Wiser deals with me: —

  Amen, say I: if He choose to lop

  Branch after branch of my leafèd tree,

  In its own ripe season more fruit shall be.

  Tenfold fruit in the time of fruit,

  In the time of corn and wine and oil,

  Sound at the core, firm at the root;

  Repaying the years and years of toil,

  Repaying the blood that fed the soil.

  SIR WINTER

  Sir Winter is coming across the wide sea,

  With his blustering companions, so wild and so free:

  He speeds on his way, like some bold buccaneer,

  And Day flies before him with faltering and fear.

  In the front of the battle new trophies to reap,

  Mid the howl of the tempest, the roar of the deep,

  Lo, he comes with his noiseless-shod legions of snow

  And nips the last buds that were lingering to blow.

  Sweet blackbird is silenced with chaffinch and thrush,

  Only waistcoated robin still chirps in the bush:

  Soft sun-loving swallows have mustered in force

  And winged to the spice-teaming southlands their course.

  Plump housekeeper dormouse has tucked himself neat,

  Just a brown ball in moss with a morsel to eat;

  Armed hedgehog has huddled him into the hedge

  While frogs miss freezing deep down in the sedge.

  So sturdy Sir Winter has conquered us quite,

  He has ravaged our country to left and to right:

  Since we must bear his yoke for a season, we’d best

  Try to lighten its weight on ourselves and the rest.

  Soft swallows have left us alone in the lurch,

  But robin sits whistling to us from his perch:

  If I were red robin, I’d pipe you a tune

  Would make you despise all the beauties of June.

  But since that cannot be, let us draw round the fire,

  Munch chestnuts, tell stories, and stir the blaze higher:

  We’ll comfort pinched robin with crumbs, little man,

  Till he sings us the very best song that he can.

  IN AN ARTIST’S STUDIO

  One face looks out from all his canvasses,

  One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans;

  We found her hidden just behind those screens,

  That mirror gave back all her loveliness.

  A queen in opal or in ruby dress,

  A nameless girl in freshest summer greens,

  A saint, an angel; — every canvass means

  The same one meaning, neither more nor less.

  He feeds upon her face by day and night,

  And she with true kind eyes looks back on him

  Fair as the moo
n and joyful as the light:

  Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;

  Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;

  Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.

  INTROSPECTIVE

  I wish it were over the terrible pain,

  Pang after pang again and again;

  First the shattering ruining blow,

  Then the probing steady and slow.

  Did I wince? I did not faint:

  My soul broke but was not bent;

  Up I stand like a blasted tree

  By the shore of the shivering sea.

  On my boughs neither leaf nor fruit,

  No sap in my uttermost root,

  Brooding in an anguish dumb

  On the short past and the long to come.

  Dumb I was when the ruin fell,

  Dumb I remain and will never tell:

  O my soul I talk with thee

  But not another the sight must see.

  I did not start when the torture stung,

  I did not faint when the torture wrung;

  Let it come tenfold if come it must

  But I will not groan when I bite the dust.

  THE HEART KNOWETH ITS OWN BITTERNESS

  When all the over-work of life

  Is finished once, and fast asleep

  We swerve no more beneath the knife

  But taste that silence cool and deep;

  Forgetful of the highways rough,

  Forgetful of the thorny scourge,

  Forgetful of the tossing surge,

  Then shall we find it is enough? —

  How can we say ‘enough’ on earth;