Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti

by Christina Rossetti

‘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