‘Enough’ with such a craving heart:
I have not found it since my birth
But still have bartered part for part.
I have not held and hugged the whole,
But paid the old to gain the new;
Much have I paid, yet much is due,
Till I am beggared sense and soul.
I used to labor, used to strive
For pleasure with a restless will:
Now if I save my soul alive
All else what matters, good or ill?
I used to dream alone, to plan
Unspoken hopes and days to come: —
Of all my past this is the sum:
I will not lean on child of man.
To give, to give, not to receive,
I long to pour myself, my soul,
Not to keep back or count or leave
But king with king to give the whole:
I long for one to stir my deep —
I have had enough of help and gift —
I long for one to search and sift
Myself, to take myself and keep.
You scratch my surface with your pin;
You stroke me smooth with hushing breath; —
Nay pierce, nay probe, nay dig within,
Probe my quick core and sound my depth.
You call me with a puny call,
You talk, you smile, you nothing do;
How should I spend my heart on you,
My heart that so outweighs you all?
Your vessels are by much too strait;
Were I to pour you could not hold,
Bear with me: I must bear to wait
A fountain sealed thro’ heat and cold.
Bear with me days or months or years;
Deep must call deep until the end
When friend shall no more envy friend
Nor vex his friend at unawares.
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,
I full of Christ and Christ of me.
REFLECTION
Gazing thro’ her chamber window
Sits my soul’s dear soul;
Looking northward, looking southward,
Looking to the goal,
Looking back without control. —
I have strewn thy path, beloved,
With plumed meadowsweet,
Iris and pale perfumed lilies,
Roses most complete:
Wherefore pause on listless feet? —
But she sits and never answers;
Gazing gazing still
On swift fountain, shadowed valley,
Cedared sunlit hill:
Who can guess or read her will?
Who can guess or read the spirit
Shrined within her eyes,
Part a longing, part a languor,
Part a mere surprize,
While slow mists do rise and rise? —
Is it love she looks and longs for;
Is it rest or peace;
Is it slumber self-forgetful
In its utter ease;
Is it one or all of these?
So she sits and doth not answer
With her dreaming eyes,
With her languid look delicious
Almost Paradise,
Less than happy, over wise.
Answer me, O self-forgetful —
Or of what beside? —
Is it day dream of a maiden,
Vision of a bride,
Is it knowledge, love, or pride?
Cold she sits thro’ all my kindling,
Deaf to all I pray:
I have wasted might and wisdom,
Wasted night and day:
Deaf she dreams to all I say.
Now if I could guess her secret
Were it worth the guess? —
Time is lessening, hope is lessening,
Love grows less and less:
What care I for no or yes? —
I will give her stately burial,
Tho’, when she lies dead:
For dear memory of the past time,
Of her royal head,
Of the much I strove and said.
I will give her stately burial,
Willow branches bent;
Have her carved in alabaster,
As she dreamed and leant
While I wondered what she meant.
A COAST-NIGHTMARE
I have a friend in ghostland —
Early found, ah me, how early lost! —
Blood-red seaweeds drip along that coastland
By the strong sea wrenched and tossed.
In every creek there slopes a dead man’s islet,
And such an one in every bay;
All unripened in the unended twilight:
For there comes neither night nor day.
Unripe harvest there hath none to reap it
From the watery misty place;
Unripe vineyard there hath none to keep it
In unprofitable space.
Living flocks and herds are nowhere found there;
Only ghosts in flocks and shoals:
Indistinguished hazy ghosts surround there
Meteors whirling on their poles;
Indistinguished hazy ghosts abound there;
Troops, yea swarms, of dead men’s souls. —
Have they towns to live in? —
They have towers and towns from sea to sea;
Of each town the gates are seven;
Of one of these each ghost is free.
Civilians, soldiers, seamen,
Of one town each ghost is free:
They are ghastly men those ghostly freemen:
Such a sight may you not see. —
How know you that your lover
Of death’s tideless waters stoops to drink? —
Me by night doth mouldy darkness cover,
It makes me quake to think:
All night long I feel his presence hover
Thro’ the darkness black as ink.
Without a voice he tells me
The wordless secrets of death’s deep:
If I sleep, his trumpet voice compels me
To stalk forth in my sleep:
If I wake, he hunts me like a nightmare;
I feel my hair stand up, my body creep:
Without light I see a blasting sight there,
See a secret I must keep.
FOR ONE SAKE
One passed me like a flash of lightning by
To ring clear bells of heaven beyond the stars:
Then said I: Wars and rumours of your wars
Are dull with din of what and where and why;
My heart is where these troubles draw not nigh:
Let me alone till heaven shall burst its bars,
Break up its fountains, roll its flashing cars
Earthwards with fire to test and purify.
Let me alone tonight, and one night more
Of which I shall not count the eventide;
Its morrow will not be as days before:
Let me alone to dream, perhaps to weep;
To dream of her the imperishable bride,
Dream while I wake and dream on while I sleep.
MY OLD FRIENDS
They lie at rest asleep and dead,
The dew drops cool above their head,
They knew not when past summer fled —
Amen.
They lie at rest and quite forget
The hopes and fears that wring us yet;
Their eyes are set, their heart is set —
Amen.
They lie with us, yet gone away
Hear nothing that we sob or say
Beneath the thorn of wintry ma
y —
Miserere.
Together all yet each alone,
Each laid at rest beneath his own
Smooth turf or white appointed stone —
Amen.
When shall our slumbers be so deep,
And bleeding heart and eyes that weep
Lie lapped in the sufficient sleep? —
Miserere.
We dream of them: and who shall say
They never dream while far away
Of us between the night and day? —
Sursum corda.
Gone far away: or it may be
They lean toward us and hear and see
Yea and remember more than we —
Amen.
For wherefore should we deem them far
Who know not where those spirits are
That shall outshine both moon and star? —
Hallelujah.
Where check or change can never rise
Deep in recovered Paradise
They rest world-wearied heart and eyes —
Jubilate.
We hope and love with throbbing breast,
They hope and love and are at rest:
And yet we question which is best —
Miserere.
Oh what is earth, that we should build
Brief houses here, and seek concealed
Poor treasure, and add field to field
And heap to heap and store to store,
Still grasping, ever grasping more,
While death stands knocking at our door? —
Cui bono?
But one will answer: Changed and pale
And starved at heart, I thirst I fail
For love, I thirst without avail —
Miserrima.
Sweet love, a fountain sealed to me:
Mere love, the sole sufficiency
For every longing that can be —
Amen.
Oh happy those alone whose lot
Is love: I search from spot to spot;
In life, in death, I find it not —
Miserrima.
Not found in life: nay, verily.
I too have sought: come sit with me
And grief for grief shall answer thee —
Miserrima.
Sit with me where the sapless leaves
Are fallen and sere: to one who grieves
What cheer have last year’s harvest sheaves? —
Cui bono?
Not found in life: yet found in death.
I sought life as but a breath
There is a nest of love beneath
The sod, a home prepared before;
Our brethren whom one mother bore
Live there, and toil and ache no more —
Hallelujah.
Dear friends and kinsfolk great and small;
Not lost but saved both one and all:
They watch across the parting wall
(Do they not watch?) and count the creep
Of time, and sound the shallowing deep,
Till we in port shall also sleep —
Hallelujah, Amen.
YET A LITTLE WHILE
These days are long before I die:
To sit alone upon a thorn
Is what the nightingale forlorn
Does night by night continually;
She swells her heart to extasy
Until it bursts and she can die.
These days are long that wane and wax:
Waxeth and wanes the ghostly moon
Achill and pale in cordial June;
What is it that she wandering lacks?
She seems as one that aches and aches
Most sick to wane most sick to wax.
Of all the sad sights in the world
The downfall of an Autumn leaf
Is grievous and suggesteth grief:
Who thought when Spring was fresh unfurled
Of this? when Spring twigs gleamed impearled
Who thought of frost that nips the world?
There are a hundred subtle stings
To prick us in our daily walk:
A young fruit cankered on its stalk,
A strong bird snared for all his wings,
A nest that sang but never sings;
Yea sight and sound and silence stings.
There is a lack in solitude,
There is a load in throng of life;
One with another genders strife,
To be alone yet is not good:
I know but of one neighbourhood
At peace and full; death’s solitude.
Sleep soundly, dears, who lulled at last
Forget the bird and all her pains,
Forget the moon that waxes, wanes,
The leaf, the sting, the frostful blast;
Forget the troublous years that past
In strife or ache did end at last.
We have clear call of daily bells,
A dimness where the anthems are,
A chancel vault of sky and star,
A thunder if the organ swells:
Alas our daily life — what else? —
Is not in tune with daily bells.
You have deep pause betwixt the chimes
Of earth and heaven, a patient pause
Yet glad with rest by certain laws:
You look and long; while oftentimes
Precursive flush of morning climbs
And air vibrates with coming chimes.
ONLY BELIEVE
I stood by weeping
Yet a sorrowful silence keeping
While an Angel smote my love
As she lay sleeping. —
Is there a bed above
More fragrant than these violets
That are white like death?
White like a dove
Flowers in the blessed islets
Breathe sweeter breath
All fair morns and twilights.
Is the gold there
More golden than these tresses?
There heads are aureoled
And crowned like gold
With light most rare.
Are the bowers of Heaven
More choice than these?
To them are given
All odorous shady trees.
Earth’s bowers are wildernesses
Compared with the recesses
Made soft there now
Nest-like twixt bough and bough.
Who shall live in such a nest?
Heart with heart at rest:
All they whose troubles cease
In peace:
Souls that wrestled
Now are nestled
There at ease:
Throng from east and west
From north and south
To plenty from the land of drouth.
How long must they wait?
There is a certain term
For their bodies to the worm
And their souls at Heaven-gate.
Dust to dust, clod to clod
These precious things of God;
Trampled underfoot by man
And beast the appointed years.
Their longest life was but a span
For birth, death, laughter, tears:
Is it worthwhile to live,
Rejoice and grieve,
Hope, fear and die?
Man with man, lie with lie,
The slow show dwindles by:
At last what shall we have
Besides a grave?
Lies and shows no more,
No fear, no pain,
But after hope and sleep
Dear joys again.
Those who sowed shall reap:
Those who bore
The cross shall wear the crown:
Those who clomb the steep
There shall sit down.
The Shepherd of the sheep
Feeds His flock there;
[The rest of the poem is missing from the notebook.]
&nb
sp; RIVALS
A Shadow of Saint Dorothea.
“Golden haired, lily white,
“Will you pluck me lilies;
“Or will you show me where they grow,
“Show where the summer rill is?
“But is your hair of gold or light,
“And is your foot of flake or fire,
“And have you wings rolled up from sight,
“And joy to slake desire?” —
“I pluck young flowers of Paradise,
“Lilies and roses red;
“A sceptre for my hand,
“A crown to crown my golden head.
“Love makes me wise:
“I sing, I stand,
“I pluck palm branches in the sheltered land.” —
“Is there a path to Heaven
“My heavy foot may tread;
“And will you show that way to go,
“That rose and lily bed?
“Which day of all these seven
“Will lighten my heart of lead,
“Will purge mine eyes and make me wise
“Alive or dead?” —
“There is a Heavenward stair —
“Mount, strain upwards, strain and strain —
“Each step will crumble to your foot
“That never shall descend again.
“There grows a tree from ancient root,
“With healing leaves and twelvefold fruit,
“In musical Heaven air:
“Feast with me there.” —
“I have a home on earth I cannot leave,
“I have a friend on earth I cannot grieve:
“Come down to me, I cannot mount to you.” —
“Nay choose between us both,
“Choose as you are lief or loath:
“You cannot keep these things and have me too.” —
A YAWN
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti Page 70