Christina Georgina Rossetti

“ Strip their wool-coats, glue-coats, streaks,
⁠In the woods and hedges;
Weave a bower of love
⁠For birds to meet each other,
Weave a canopy above
⁠Nest and egg and mother
But for fattening rain
⁠We should have no flowers,
Never a bud or leaf again
⁠But for soaking showers;
Never a mated bird
⁠In the rocking tree-tops,
Never indeed a flock or herd
⁠To graze upon the lea-crops. ”

“ One whistled like a bird.
⁠But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:
"Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather."
"You have much gold upon your head,"
They answered all together:
"Buy from us with a golden curl."
She clipped a precious golden lock,
She dropped a tear more rare than pearl,
Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flowed that juice ”

“ Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger tips.
"Lie close," Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
"We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"
"Come buy," call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.
"Oh," cried Lizzie, "Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men." ”

“ 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 to-day I fade as doth a leaf,
I languish and grow less. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Racked, roasted, crushed, wrenched limb from limb,
They the offscouring of the world:
The heaven of starry heavens unfurled,
The sun before their face is dim.
⁠You looking earthward what see you?
Milk-white wine-flushed among the vines,
Up and down leaping, to and fro,
Most glad, most full, made strong with wines,
Blooming as peaches pearled with dew,
Their golden windy hair afloat,
Love-music warbling in their throat,
Young men and women come and go. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone
Of not-returning time:
Would talk about the haunted glen,
The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat
But poison in the blood;
(Men sell not such in any town:)
Would tell them how her sister stood
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands
Would bid them cling together,
"For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather ”

“ Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.
I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled
Like overflowing Jordan in its youth:
It waxed and coloured sensibly to sight;
Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled
Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew,
Fresh-hatched perhaps and daubed with birthday dew.
The rest if I should tell, I fear my friend
My closest friend would deem the facts untrue ”

“ 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 ”

“ My heart is like a singing bird
⁠Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an appletree
⁠Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
⁠That paddles in a halcyon sea ”

“ Why did a great lord find me out,
⁠And praise my flaxen hair?
Why did a great lord find me out
⁠To fill my heart with care?
He lured me to his palace home—
⁠Woe's me for joy thereof—
To lead a shameless shameful life,
⁠His plaything and his love. ”

“ I looked for that which is not, nor can be,
⁠And hope deferred made my heart sick in truth:
⁠But years must pass before a hope of youth
⁠Is resigned utterly.
I watched and waited with a steadfast will:
⁠And though the object seemed to flee away
⁠That I so longed for, ever day by day
⁠I watched and waited still.
Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more ”

“ Good bye.
I must drift across the sea,
I must sink into the snow,
I must die.
You can bask in this sun,
You can drink wine, and eat:
Good bye.
I must gird myself and run,
Though with unready feet:
I must die. ”

“ Live all thy sweet life thro',
⁠Sweet Rose, dew-sprent,
Drop down thine evening dew
To gather it anew
When day is bright:
⁠I fancy thou wast meant
Chiefly to give delight.
Sing in the silent sky,
⁠Glad soaring bird ”

“ For he's my lord for better and worse,
⁠And him I love, Maude Clare.
"Yea, though you're taller by the head,
⁠More wise, and much more fair;
I'll love him till he loves me best,
⁠Me best of all, Maude Clare." ”

“ To be pecked at by every wind that blows?
You would not peck? I thank you for good will,
Believe, but leave that truth untested still.
⁠Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust
March with its peck of dust,
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers,
Nor even May, whose flowers
One frost may wither through the sunless hours. ”

“ Like early dew, or like the sudden breath
Of wind, or like the grass that withereth,
⁠Is man, tossed to and fro by hope and fear:
⁠So little joy hath he, so little cheer,
Till all things end in the long dust of death. ”

“ Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
⁠As sunlight on a stream;
⁠Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
⁠Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet ”

“ Sweet life, but sweeter death that passeth by
⁠And is as though it had not been:—
⁠All colours turn to green;
The bright hues vanish and the odours fly,
⁠The grass hath lasting worth.
And youth and beauty die. ”

“ Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
⁠Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake,
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
⁠Her perfect peace. ”

“ Passing away, saith the World, passing away:
Chances, beauty and youth sapped day by day:
Thy life never continueth in one stay.
Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey
That hath won neither laurel nor bay? ”

“ My life is like a faded leaf,
⁠My harvest dwindled to a husk;
Truly my life is void and brief
⁠And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
⁠No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring ”

“ So now I sit here quite alone
⁠Blinded with tears; nor grieve for that,
⁠For nought is left worth looking at
Since my delightful land is gone.
A violet bed is budding near,
⁠Wherein a lark has made her nest:
⁠And good they are, but not the best ”

“ When life's alive in everything,
Before new nestlings sing,
Before cleft swallows speed their journey back
Along the trackless track—
God guides their wing,
He spreads their table that they nothing lack,—
Before the daisy grows a common flower,
Before the sun has power
To scorch the world up in his noontide hour. ”

“ I counted rosiest apples on the earth
⁠Of far less worth than love.
So once it was with me you stooped to talk
⁠Laughing and listening in this very lane:
To think that by this way we used to walk
⁠We shall not walk again! ”

“ THE FIRST SPRING DAY.
I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun
And crocus fires are kindling one by one:
⁠Sing, robin, sing ”

“ 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 ”

“ Between the hills,
And musical the birds' nests
Beside those rills:
The nests are types of home
Love-hidden from ills,
The nests are types of spirits
Love-music fills.
So dream the sleepers,
Each man in his place ”

“ But the dead branch spoke from the sod,
And the eggs answered me again:
Because we failed dost thou complain?
Is thy wrath just? And what if God,
Who waiteth for thy fruits in vain,
Should also take the rod? ”

“ While foremost go his feet—
His feet that cannot carry him.
My feast's a show, my lights are dim;
Be still, your music is not sweet,—
There is no music more for him:
His lights are out, his feast is done ”

“ 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 ”

“ Through the leaves while evening hushes.
There by day the lark is singing
And the grass and weeds are springing;
There by night the bat is winging;
There for ever winds are bringing
Far-off chimes of church-bells ringing. ”

“ He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold
⁠That hid my face, or take my hand in his,
⁠Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head:
⁠He did not love me living; but once dead
⁠He pitied me; and very sweet it is
To know he still is warm though I am cold. ”

“ Nor the cold strong sea:
Far away a light shines
Beyond the hills and pines;
It is lit for me.
BRIDEGROOM.
I have thee close, my dear,
No terror can come near;
Only far off the northern light shines clear. ”

“ When they reached where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other,
Brother with queer brother;
Signalling each other,
Brother with sly brother.
One set his basket down,
One reared his plate;
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town) ”

“ The swarming howling wretches below
Gained and gained and gained.
Skene looked at his pale young wife:—
"Is the time come?"—"The time is come!"—
Young, strong, and so full of life:
The agony struck them dumb. ”

“ Than men, Who deigned for me to wear
A visage marred beyond compare."
"And thou hast riches."
⁠"Daily bread:
All else is His; Who living, dead,
For me lacked where to lay His Head."
"And life is sweet." ”

“ Yet count we not His promise slack,
But watch and wait for Him."
One with another, soul with soul,
They kindle fire from fire:
"Friends watch us who have touched the goal."
"They urge us, come up higher." ”

“ In separate herds the deer
Lie; here the bucks, and here
The does, and by its mother sleeps the fawn:
Through all the hours of night until the dawn
They sleep, forgetting fear.
The hare sleeps where it lies
With wary half-closed eyes;
The cock has ceased to crow, the hen to cluck:
Only the fox is out, some heedless duck
Or chicken to surprise. ”

“ That build their nests and pair and sing,
Nor wait for mateless nightingale;
⁠I'd listen to the lusty herds,
⁠The ewes with lambs as white as snow,
I'd find out music in the hail
⁠And all the winds that blow. ”

“ Oh who but Maude, my sister Maude,
⁠Who lurked to spy and peer.
Cold he lies, as cold as stone,
⁠With his clotted curls about his face:
The comeliest corpse in all the world
⁠And worthy of a queen's embrace. ”

“ The first nine chapters retain all the charming grace of style which marked everything of Wilson's, and the author of the latter two-thirds of the memoir deserves very high praise for the skill he has used, and the kindly spirit he has shown. From the first page to the fast, the book claims careful reading as being a full but not overcrowded rehearsal of a most instructive life and the true picture of a mind that was rare in strength and beauty."-Examiner. ”

“ Darkness more clear than noon-day holdeth her,
⁠Silence more musical than any song;
Even her very heart has ceased to stir:
Until the morning of Eternity
Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be;
⁠And when she wakes she will not think it long. ”

“ We do not know another writer unless it be Pascal who leaves precisely the same impression."-Spectator.
"Few men of the nineteenth century have attained a more remarkable influence. Charming as specimens of style, they are of infinitely greater value as showing the inner life of a man who was as simple as a child, and yet as gifted as any of the many learned writers and scholars whom France has produced."-Bell's Messenger. ”

“ X. WILSON'S NOCTES. XI. COMTE'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY.
"One of the most delightful and precious volumes of criticism that has appeared in these days. . . . To every cultivated reader they will disclose the wonderful clearness of perception, the delicacy of feeling, the pure taste, and the remarkably firm and decisive judgment which are the characteristics of all Mr. Brimley's writings on subjects that really penetrated and fully possessed is nature."—Nonconformist. ”

“ He who hath little shall not lack;
⁠He who hath plenty shall decay:
⁠Our fathers went; we pass away;
Our children follow on our track:
So generations fail, and so
They are renewed and come and go.
The earth is fattened with our dead ”