Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress and Other Poems

by Christina Rossetti

  Shapes flit again,

  Flit silent as the silence

  Where men lie slain;

  Their shadow cast upon the sails

  Is like a stain.

  No voice to call the sleepers,

  No hand to raise:

  They sleep to death in dreaming,

  Of length of days.

  Vanity of vanities,

  The Preacher says:

  Vanity is the end

  Of all their ways.

  FROM HOUSE TO HOME

  THE first was like a dream through summer heat,

  The second like a tedious numbing swoon,

  While the half-frozen pulses lagged to beat

  Beneath a winter moon.

  'But,' says my friend, 'what was this thing and where?'

  It was a pleasure-place within my soul;

  An earthly paradise supremely fair

  That lured me from the goal.

  The first part was a tissue of hugged lies;

  The second was its ruin fraught with pain:

  Why raise the fair delusion to the skies

  But to be dashed again?

  My castle stood of white transparent glass

  Glittering and frail with many a fretted spire,

  But when the summer sunset came to pass

  It kindled into fire.

  My pleasaunce was an undulating green,

  Stately with trees whose shadows slept below,

  With glimpses of smooth garden-beds between

  Like flame or sky or snow.

  Swift squirrels on the pastures took their ease,

  With leaping lambs safe from the unfeared knife;

  All singing-birds rejoicing in those trees

  Fulfilled their careless life.

  Woodpigeons cooed there, stockdoves nestled there;

  My trees were full of songs and flowers and fruit,

  Their branches spread a city to the air

  And mice lodged in their root.

  My heath lay farther off, where lizards lived

  In strange metallic mail, just spied and gone;

  Like darted lightnings here and there perceived

  But nowhere dwelt upon.

  Frogs and fat toads were there to hop or plod

  And propagate in peace, an uncouth crew,

  Where velvet-headed rushes rustling nod

  And spill the morning dew.

  All caterpillars throve beneath my rule,

  With snails and slugs in corners out of sight;

  I never marred the curious sudden stool

  That perfects in a night.

  Safe in his excavated gallery

  The burrowing mole groped on from year to year;

  No harmless hedgehog curled because of me

  His prickly back for fear.

  Oft times one like an angel walked with me,

  With spirit-discerning eyes like flames of fire,

  But deep as the unfathomed endless sea

  Fulfilling my desire:

  And sometimes like a snowdrift he was fair,

  And sometimes like a sunset glorious red,

  And sometimes he had wings to scale the air

  With aureole round his head.

  We sang our songs together by the way,

  Calls and recalls and echoes of delight;

  So communed we together all the day,

  And so in dreams by night.

  I have no words to tell what way we walked,

  What unforgotten path now closed and sealed;

  I have no words to tell all things we talked,

  All things that he revealed:

  This only can I tell: that hour by hour

  I waxed more feastful, lifted up and glad;

  I felt no thorn-prick when I plucked a flower,

  Felt not my friend was sad.

  'Tomorrow,' once I said to him with smiles:

  'Tonight,' he answered gravely and was dumb,

  But pointed out the stones that numbered miles

  And miles and miles to come.

  'Not so,' I said: 'tomorrow shall be sweet;

  Tonight is not so sweet as coming days.'

  Then first I saw that he had turned his feet,

  Had turned from me his face:

  Running and flying miles and miles he went,

  But once looked back to beckon with his hand

  And cry: 'Come home, O love, from banishment:

  Come to the distant land.'

  That night destroyed me like an avalanche;

  One night turned all my summer back to snow:

  Next morning not a bird upon my branch,

  Not a lamb woke below,—

  No bird, no lamb, no living breathing thing;

  No squirrel scampered on my breezy lawn,

  No mouse lodged by his hoard: all joys took wing

  And fled before that dawn.

  Azure and sun were starved from heaven above,

  No dew had fallen, but biting frost lay hoar:

  O love, I knew that I should meet my love,

  Should find my love no more.

  'My love no more,' I muttered stunned with pain:

  I shed no tear, I wrung no passionate hand,

  Till something whispered: 'You shall meet again,

  Meet in a distant land.'

  Then with a cry like famine I arose,

  I lit my candle, searched from room to room,

  Searched up and down; a war of winds that froze

  Swept through the blank of gloom.

  I searched day after day, night after night;

  Scant change there came to me of night or day:

  'No more,' I wailed, 'no more:' and trimmed my light,

  And gnashed but did not pray,

  Until my heart broke and my spirit broke:

  Upon the frost-bound floor I stumbled, fell,

  And moaned: 'It is enough: withhold the stroke.

  Farewell, O love, farewell.'

  Then life swooned from me. And I heard the song

  Of spheres and spirits rejoicing over me:

  One cried: 'Our sister, she hath suffered long.'—

  One answered: 'Make her see.'—

  One cried: 'Oh blessèd she who no more pain,

  Who no more disappointment shall receive.'—

  One answered: 'Not so: she must live again;

  Strengthen thou her to live.'

  So while I lay entranced a curtain seemed

  To shrivel with crackling from before my face;

  Across mine eyes a waxing radiance beamed

  And showed a certain place.

  I saw a vision of a woman, where

  Night and new morning strive for domination;

  Incomparably pale, and almost fair,

  And sad beyond expression.

  Her eyes were like some fire-enshrining gem,

  Were stately like the stars, and yet were tender;

  Her figure charmed me like a windy stem

  Quivering and drooped and slender.

  I stood upon the outer barren ground,

  She stood on inner ground that budded flowers;

  While circling in their never-slackening round

  Danced by the mystic hours.

  But every flower was lifted on a thorn,

  And every thorn shot upright from its sands

  To gall her feet; hoarse laughter pealed in scorn

  With cruel clapping hands.

  She bled and wept, yet did not shrink; her strength

  Was strung up until daybreak of delight:

  She measured measureless sorrow toward its length,

  And breadth, and depth, and height.

  Then marked I how a chain sustained her form,

  A chain of living links not made nor riven:

  It stretched sheer up through lightning, wind, and storm,

  And anchored fast in heaven.

  One cried: 'How long? yet founded on the Rock

  She shall do battle, suffer,
and attain.'—

  One answered: 'Faith quakes in the tempest shock:

  Strengthen her soul again.'

  I saw a cup sent down and come to her

  Brimfull of loathing and of bitterness:

  She drank with livid lips that seemed to stir

  The depth, not make it less.

  But as she drank I spied a hand distil

  New wine and virgin honey; making it

  First bitter-sweet, then sweet indeed, until

  She tasted only sweet.

  Her lips and cheeks waxed rosy-fresh and young;

  Drinking she sang: 'My soul shall nothing want;'

  And drank anew: while soft a song was sung,

  A mystical slow chant.

  One cried: 'The wounds are faithful of a friend:

  The wilderness shall blossom as a rose.'—

  One answered: 'Rend the veil, declare the end,

  Strengthen her ere she goes.'

  Then earth and heaven were rolled up like a scroll;

  Time and space, change and death, had passed away;

  Weight, number, measure, each had reached its whole;

  The day had come, that day.

  Multitudes—multitudes—stood up in bliss,

  Made equal to the angels, glorious, fair;

  With harps, palms, wedding-garments, kiss of peace

  And crowned and haloed hair.

  They sang a song, a new song in the height,

  Harping with harps to Him Who is Strong and True:

  They drank new wine, their eyes saw with new light,

  Lo, all things were made new.

  Tier beyond tier they rose and rose and rose

  So high that it was dreadful, flames with flames:

  No man could number them, no tongue disclose

  Their secret sacred names.

  As though one pulse stirred all, one rush of blood

  Fed all, one breath swept through them myriad-voiced,

  They struck their harps, cast down their crowns, they stood

  And worshipped and rejoiced.

  Each face looked one way like a moon new-lit,

  Each face looked one way towards its Sun of Love;

  Drank love and bathed in love and mirrored it

  And knew no end thereof.

  Glory touched glory on each blessèd head,

  Hands locked dear hands never to sunder more:

  These were the new-begotten from the dead

  Whom the great birthday bore.

  Heart answered heart, soul answered soul at rest,

  Double against each other, filled, sufficed:

  All loving, loved of all; but loving best

  And best beloved of Christ.

  I saw that one who lost her love in pain,

  Who trod on thorns, who drank the loathsome cup;

  The lost in night, in day was found again;

  The fallen was lifted up.

  They stood together in the blessèd noon,

  They sang together through the length of days;

  Each loving face bent Sunwards like a moon

  New-lit with love and praise.

  Therefore, O friend, I would not if I might

  Rebuild my house of lies, wherein I joyed

  One time to dwell: my soul shall walk in white,

  Cast down but not destroyed.

  Therefore in patience I possess my soul;

  Yea, therefore as a flint I set my face,

  To pluck down, to build up again the whole—

  But in a distant place.

  These thorns are sharp, yet I can tread on them;

  This cup is loathsome, yet He makes it sweet:

  My face is steadfast toward Jerusalem,

  My heart remembers it.

  I lift the hanging hands, the feeble knees—

  I, precious more than seven times molten gold—

  Until the day when from His storehouses

  God shall bring new and old;

  Beauty for ashes, oil of joy for grief,

  Garment of praise for spirit of heaviness:

  Although today I fade as doth a leaf,

  I languish and grow less.

  Although today He prunes my twigs with pain,

  Yet doth His blood nourish and warm my root:

  Tomorrow I shall put forth buds again

  And clothe myself with fruit.

  Although today I walk in tedious ways,

  Today His staff is turned into a rod,

  Yet will I wait for Him the appointed days

  And stay upon my God.

  OLD AND NEW YEAR DITTIES

  1

  NEW Year met me somewhat sad:

  Old Year leaves me tired,

  Stripped of favourite things I had,

  Baulked of much desired:

  Yet farther on my road today

  God willing, farther on my way.

  New Year coming on apace

  What have you to give me?

  Bring you scathe, or bring you grace,

  Face me with an honest face;

  You shall not deceive me:

  Be it good or ill, be it what you will,

  It needs shall help me on my road,

  My rugged way to heaven, please God.

  2

  WATCH with me, men, women, and children dear,

  You whom I love, for whom I hope and fear,

  Watch with me this last vigil of the year.

  Some hug their business, some their pleasure-scheme;

  Some seize the vacant hour to sleep or dream;

  Heart locked in heart some kneel and watch apart.

  Watch with me blessèd spirits, who delight

  All through the holy night to walk in white,

  Or take your ease after the long-drawn fight.

  I know not if they watch with me: I know

  They count this eve of resurrection slow,

  And cry, 'How long?' with urgent utterance strong.

  Watch with me Jesus, in my loneliness:

  Though others say me nay, yet say Thou yes;

  Though others pass me by, stop Thou to bless.

  Yea, Thou dost stop with me this vigil night;

  Tonight of pain, tomorrow of delight:

  I, Love, am Thine; Thou, Lord my God, art mine.