Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress and Other Poems

by Christina Rossetti

  From thunderous lightning-clouds, that blot

  Blue heaven grown lurid-pale.

  Weedy waves are tossed ashore,

  Sea-things strange to sight

  Gasp upon the barren shore

  And fade away in light.

  In the parching August wind

  Corn-fields bow the head,

  Sheltered in round valley depths,

  On low hills outspread.

  Early leaves drop loitering down

  Weightless on the breeze,

  First fruits of the year's decay

  From the withering trees.

  In brisk wind of September

  The heavy-headed fruits

  Shake upon their bending boughs

  And drop from the shoots;

  Some glow golden in the sun,

  Some show green and streaked,

  Some set forth a purple bloom,

  Some blush rosy-cheeked.

  In strong blast of October

  At the equinox,

  Stirred up in his hollow bed

  Broad ocean rocks;

  Plunge the ships on his bosom,

  Leaps and plunges the foam,—

  It's oh! for mothers' sons at sea,

  That they were safe at home.

  In slack wind of November

  The fog forms and shifts;

  All the world comes out again

  When the fog lifts.

  Loosened from their sapless twigs

  Leaves drop with every gust;

  Drifting, rustling, out of sight

  In the damp or dust.

  Last of all, December,

  The year's sands nearly run,

  Speeds on the shortest day,

  Curtails the sun;

  With its bleak raw wind

  Lays the last leaves low,

  Brings back the nightly frosts,

  Brings back the snow.

  THE QUEEN OF HEARTS

  HOW comes it, Flora, that, whenever we

  Play cards together, you invariably,

  However the pack parts,

  Still hold the Queen of Hearts?

  I've scanned you with a scrutinizing gaze,

  Resolved to fathom these your secret ways:

  But, sift them as I will,

  Your ways are secret still.

  I cut and shuffle; shuffle, cut, again;

  But all my cutting, shuffling, proves in vain:

  Vain hope, vain forethought too;

  That Queen still falls to you.

  I dropped her once, prepense; but, ere the deal

  Was dealt, your instinct seemed her loss to feel:

  'There should be one card more,'

  You said, and searched the floor.

  I cheated once; I made a private notch

  In Heart-Queen's back, and kept a lynx-eyed watch;

  Yet such another back

  Deceived me in the pack:

  The Queen of Clubs assumed by arts unknown

  An imitative dint that seemed my own;

  This notch, not of my doing,

  Misled me to my ruin.

  It baffles me to puzzle out the clue,

  Which must be skill, or craft, or luck in you:

  Unless, indeed, it be

  Natural affinity.

  ONE DAY

  I WILL tell you when they met:

  In the limpid days of Spring;

  Elder boughs were budding yet,

  Oaken boughs looked wintry still,

  But primrose and veined violet

  In the mossful turf were set,

  While meeting birds made haste to sing

  And build with right good will.

  I will tell you when they parted:

  When plenteous Autumn sheaves were brown,

  Then they parted heavy-hearted;

  The full rejoicing sun looked down

  As grand as in the days before;

  Only they had lost a crown;

  Only to them those days of yore

  Could come back nevermore.

  When shall they meet? I cannot tell,

  Indeed, when they shall meet again,

  Except some day in Paradise:

  For this they wait, one waits in pain.

  Beyond the sea of death love lies

  Forever, yesterday, today;

  Angels shall ask them, 'Is it well?'

  And they shall answer, 'Yea.'

  A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

  'CROAK, croak, croak,'

  Thus the Raven spoke,

  Perched on his crooked tree

  As hoarse as hoarse could be.

  Shun him and fear him,

  Lest the Bridegroom hear him;

  Scout him and rout him

  With his ominous eye about him.

  Yet, 'Croak, croak, croak,'

  Still tolled from the oak;

  From that fatal black bird,

  Whether heard or unheard:

  'O ship upon the high seas,

  Freighted with lives and spices,

  Sink, O ship,' croaked the Raven:

  'Let the Bride mount to heaven.'

  In a far foreign land

  Upon the wave-edged sand,

  Some friends gaze wistfully

  Across the glittering sea.

  'If we could clasp our sister,'

  Three say, 'now we have missed her!'

  'If we could kiss our daughter!'

  Two sigh across the water.

  Oh, the ship sails fast

  With silken flags at the mast,

  And the home-wind blows soft;

  But a Raven sits aloft,

  Chuckling and choking,

  Croaking, croaking, croaking:—

  Let the beacon-fire blaze higher;

  Bridegroom, watch; the Bride draws nigher.

  On a sloped sandy beach,

  Which the spring-tide billows reach,

  Stand a watchful throng

  Who have hoped and waited long:

  'Fie on this ship, that tarries

  With the priceless freight it carries.

  The time seems long and longer:

  O languid wind, wax stronger;'—

  Whilst the Raven perched at ease

  Still croaks and does not cease,

  One monotonous note

  Tolled from his iron throat:

  'No father, no mother,

  But I have a sable brother:

  He sees where ocean flows to,

  And he knows what he knows too.'

  A day and a night

  They kept watch worn and white;

  A night and a day

  For the swift ship on its way:

  For the Bride and her maidens

  —Clear chimes the bridal cadence—

  For the tall ship that never

  Hove in sight forever.

  On either shore, some

  Stand in grief loud or dumb

  As the dreadful dread

  Grows certain though unsaid.

  For laughter there is weeping,

  And waking instead of sleeping,

  And a desperate sorrow

  Morrow after morrow.

  Oh, who knows the truth,

  How she perished in her youth,

  And like a queen went down

  Pale in her royal crown:

  How she went up to glory

  From the sea-foam chill and hoary,

  From the sea-depth black and riven

  To the calm that is in Heaven?

  They went down, all the crew,

  The silks and spices too,

  The great ones and the small,

  One and all, one and all.

  Was it through stress of weather,

  Quicksands, rocks, or all together?

  Only the Raven knows this,

  And he will not disclose this.—

  After a day and year

  The bridal bells chime clear;

  After a year and a day

  The Bri
degroom is brave and gay:

  Love is sound, faith is rotten;

  The old Bride is forgotten:—

  Two ominous Ravens only

  Remember, black and lonely.

  LIGHT LOVE

  'OH, sad thy lot before I came,

  But sadder when I go;

  My presence but a flash of flame,

  A transitory glow

  Between two barren wastes like snow.

  What wilt thou do when I am gone,

  Where wilt thou rest, my dear?

  For cold thy bed to rest upon,

  And cold the falling year

  Whose withered leaves are lost and sere.'

  She hushed the baby at her breast,

  She rocked it on her knee:

  'And I will rest my lonely rest,

  Warmed with the thought of thee,

  Rest lulled to rest by memory.'

  She hushed the baby with her kiss,

  She hushed it with her breast:

  'Is death so sadder much than this—

  Sure death that builds a nest

  For those who elsewhere cannot rest?’

  'Oh, sad thy note, my mateless dove,

  With tender nestling cold;

  But hast thou ne'er another love

  Left from the days of old,

  To build thy nest of silk and gold,

  To warm thy paleness to a blush

  When I am far away—

  To warm thy coldness to a flush,

  And turn thee back to May,

  And turn thy twilight back to day?'

  She did not answer him again,

  But leaned her face aside,

  Weary with the pang of shame and pain,

  And sore with wounded pride:

  He knew his very soul had lied.

  She strained his baby in her arms,

  His baby to her heart:

  'Even let it go, the love that harms:

  We twain will never part;

  Mine own, his own, how dear thou art.'

  'Now never teaze me, tender-eyed,

  Sigh-voiced,' he said in scorn:

  'For nigh at hand there blooms a bride,

  My bride before the morn;

  Ripe-blooming she, as thou forlorn.

  Ripe-blooming she, my rose, my peach;

  She wooes me day and night:

  I watch her tremble in my reach;

  She reddens, my delight,

  She ripens, reddens in my sight.'

  'And is she like a sunlit rose?

  Am I like withered leaves?

  Haste where thy spicèd garden blows:

  But in bare Autumn eves

  Wilt thou have store of harvest sheaves?

  Thou leavest love, true love behind,

  To seek a love as true;

  Go, seek in haste: but wilt thou find?

  Change new again for new;

  Pluck up, enjoy—yea, trample too.

  'Alas for her, poor faded rose,

  Alas for her, like me,

  Cast down and trampled in the snows.'

  'Like thee? nay, not like thee:

  She leans, but from a guarded tree.

  Farewell, and dream as long ago,

  Before we ever met:

  Farewell; my swift-paced horse seems slow.'

  She raised her eyes, not wet

  But hard, to Heaven: 'Does God forget?'

  A DREAM

  SONNET

  ONCE in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)

  We stood together in an open field;

  Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled,

  Sporting at ease and courting full in view.

  When loftier still a broadening darkness flew,

  Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed;

  Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield;

  So farewell life and love and pleasures new.

  Then as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground,

  Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson drops,

  I wept, and thought I turned towards you to weep:

  But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops

  Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound

  Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep.

  A RING POSY

  JESS and Jill are pretty girls,

  Plump and well to do,

  In a cloud of windy curls:

  Yet I know who

  Loves me more than curls or pearls.

  I'm not pretty, not a bit—

  Thin and sallow-pale;

  When I trudge along the street

  I don't need a veil:

  Yet I have one fancy hit.

  Jess and Jill can trill and sing

  With a flute-like voice,

  Dance as light as bird on wing,

  Laugh for careless joys:

  Yet it's I who wear the ring.

  Jess and Jill will mate some day,

  Surely, surely:

  Ripen on to June through May,

  While the sun shines make their hay,

  Slacken steps demurely:

  Yet even there I lead the way.

  BEAUTY IS VAIN

  WHILE roses are so red,

  While lilies are so white,

  Shall a woman exalt her face

  Because it gives delight?

  She's not so sweet as a rose,

  A lily's straighter than she,

  And if she were as red or white

  She'd be but one of three.

  Whether she flush in love's summer

  Or in its winter grow pale,

  Whether she flaunt her beauty

  Or hide it away in a veil,

  Be she red or white,

  And stand she erect or bowed,

  Time will win the race he runs with her

  And hide her away in a shroud.

  LADY MAGGIE

  YOU must not call me Maggie, you must not call me Dear,

  For I'm Lady of the Manor now stately to see;

  And if there comes a babe, as there may some happy year,

  'Twill be little lord or lady at my knee.

  Oh, but what ails you, my sailor cousin Phil,

  That you shake and turn white like a cockcrow ghost?

  You're as white as I turned once down by the mill,

  When one told me you and ship and crew were lost:

  Philip my playfellow, when we were boy and girl

  (It was the Miller's Nancy told it to me),

  Philip with the merry life in lip and curl,

  Philip my playfellow drowned in the sea!

  I thought I should have fainted, but I did not faint;

  I stood stunned at the moment, scarcely sad,

  Till I raised my wail of desolate complaint

  For you, my cousin, brother, all I had.

  They said I looked so pale—some say so fair—

  My lord stopped in passing to soothe me back to life:

  I know I missed a ringlet from my hair

  Next morning; and now I am his wife.

  Look at my gown, Philip, and look at my ring,

  I'm all crimson and gold from top to toe:

  All day long I sit in the sun and sing,

  Where in the sun red roses blush and blow.

  And I'm the rose of roses says my lord;

  And to him I'm more than the sun in the sky,

  While I hold him fast with the golden cord

  Of a curl, with the eyelash of an eye.

  His mother said 'fie,' and his sisters cried 'shame,'

  His highborn ladies cried 'shame' from their place: