Birchington Churchyard.

A lowly hill which overlooks a flat,
Half sea, half country side;
A flat-shored sea of low-voiced creeping tide
Over a chalky, weedy mat.

A hill of hillocks, flowery and kept green
Round Crosses raised for hope,
With many-tinted sunsets where the slope
Faces the lingering western sheen.

A lowly hope, a height that is but low,
While Time sets solemnly,
While the tide rises of Eternity,
Silent and neither swift nor slow.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet born on December 5, 1830, and passed away on December 29, 1894. She is best known for her romantic, devotional, and children's poems. Rossetti's works include the famous poem 'Goblin Market' and the Christmas carol 'In the Bleak Midwinter'. A major Victorian poet, her writing often featured themes of love, nature, and spirituality. She was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, as her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti was one of its founders.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Behold A Shaking.

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Simple Poetry

A Helpmeet For Him.

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Simple Poetry

Bird Or Beast?

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Simple Poetry

Dead Before Death - Sonnet

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Simple Poetry

English

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One Sea-Side Grave.

Unmindful of the roses,
Unmindful of the thorn,
A reaper tired reposes
Among his gathered corn:
So might I, till the morn!

Cold as the cold Decembers,
Past as the days that set,
While only one remembers
And all the rest forget, -
But one remembers yet.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Dream Land

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmèd sleep:
    Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
    Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
    And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
    That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
    The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
    Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
    Till time ...

Christina Georgina Rossetti

By The Sea.

Why does the sea moan evermore?
Shut out from heaven it makes its moan.
It frets against the boundary shore;
All earth's full rivers cannot fill
The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.

Sheer miracles of loveliness
Lie hid in its unlooked-on bed:
Anemones, salt, passionless,
Blow flower-like; just enough alive
To blow and multiply and thrive.

Shells quaint with curve, or spot, or spike,
Encrusted live things argus-eyed,
All fair alike, yet all unlike,
Are born without a pang, and die
Without a pang, - and so pass by.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

The Old Church On The Hill.

Moss-grown, and venerable it stands,
    From the way-side dust and noise aloof,
And the great elms stretch their sheltering hands
    To bless its grey old roof.

About it summer's greenery waves;
    The birds build fearless overhead;
Its shadow falls among the graves;
    Around it sleep the dead.

The summer sunshine softly takes
    The chancel window's pictured gloom;
The moonlight enters too, and makes
    The shadow of a tomb.

Along these aisles the bride hath passed,
    And brightened, with her innocent grace.
The pensive twilight years have cast
    About the holy place.

They brought her here--a tiny maid,
    Unweeting any gain or loss,
And on her baby forehead laid
    The symbol of the Cross.

And he...

Kate Seymour Maclean

Song

When I am dead, my dearest,
    Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
    Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
    With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
    And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
    I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
    Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
    That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
    And haply may forget.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Sound Sleep

Some are laughing, some are weeping;
She is sleeping, only sleeping.
Round her rest wild flowers are creeping;
There the wind is heaping, heaping
Sweetest sweets of Summer's keeping.
By the corn-fields ripe for reaping.

There are lilies, and there blushes
The deep rose, and there the thrushes
Sing till latest sunlight flushes
In the west; a fresh wind brushes
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.

Night and morning, noon and even,
Their sound fills her dreams with Heaven:
The long strife at lent is striven:
Till her grave-bands shall be riven
...

Christina Georgina Rossetti