Consider

(Macmillan's Magazine, Jan. 1866.)


    Consider
The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief: -
    We are as they;
    Like them we fade away,
As doth a leaf.

    Consider
The sparrows of the air of small account:
    Our God doth view
Whether they fall or mount, -
    He guards us too.

    Consider
The lilies that do neither spin nor toil,
    Yet are most fair: -
    What profits all this care
And all this coil?

    Consider
The birds that have no barn nor harvest-weeks;
    God gives them food: -
Much more our Father seeks
    To do us good.

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

A Rose Plant In Jericho.

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Simple Poetry

An Old-World Thicket.

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Simple Poetry

Weary In Well-Doing

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Simple Poetry

Spring

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Consider The Lilies Of The Field

Flowers preach to us if we will hear: -
The rose saith in the dewy morn:
I am most fair;
Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn.
The poppy saith amid the corn:
Let but my scarlet head appear
And I am held in scorn;
Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.
The lilies say: Behold how we
Preach without words of purity.
The violets whisper from the shade
Which their own leaves have made:
Men scent our fragrance on the air,
Yet take no heed
Of humble lessons we would read.
But not alone the fairest flowers:
The merest grass
Along the roadside where we pass,
Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
Tell of His love who sends the dew,
The rain and sunshine too,
To nourish one small seed.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Consider The Ravens

Lord, according to thy words,
I have considered thy birds;
And I find their life good,
And better the better understood:
Sowing neither corn nor wheat
They have all that they can eat;
Reaping no more than they sow
They have more than they could stow;
Having neither barn nor store,
Hungry again, they eat more.

Considering, I see too that they
Have a busy life, and plenty of play;
In the earth they dig their bills deep
And work well though they do not heap;
Then to play in the air they are not loath,
And their nests between are better than both.
But this is when there blow no storms,
When berries are plenty in winter, and worms,
When feathers are rife, with oil enough--
To keep the cold out and send the rain off;
If there come, indeed, ...

George MacDonald

Sweet Death

The sweetest blossoms die.
    And so it was that, going day by day
    Unto the church to praise and pray,
And crossing the green churchyard thoughtfully,
    I saw how on the graves the flowers
    Shed their fresh leaves in showers,
And how their perfume rose up to the sky
    Before it passed away.

The youngest blossoms die.
    They die, and fall and nourish the rich earth
    From which they lately had their birth;
Sweet life, but sweeter death that passeth by
    And is as though it had not been: -
    All colors turn to green:
The bright hues vanish, and the odours fly,
    The grass hath lasting worth.

And youth and beauty die.
    So be it, O my God, Thou God of truth:
    Better than beauty and than youth
Are Saints and An...

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Maiden May.

Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Sweet of scent;
Sat and dreamed away an hour,
Half content, half uncontent.

"Why should rose blossoms be born,
Tender blossoms, on a thorn
Though so sweet?
Never a thorn besets the corn
Scentless in its strength complete.

"Why are roses all so frail,
At the mercy of the gale,
Of a breath?
Yet so sweet and perfect pale,
Still so sweet in life and death."

Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Where a linnet
Made one bristling branch the tower
For her nest and young ones in it.

"Gay and clear the linnet trills;
Yet the skylark only, thrills
Heaven and earth
When he breasts the height, and fills
Height and depth ...

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Mother Country

(Macmillan's Magazine, March 1868.)


Oh what is that country
    And where can it be,
Not mine own country,
    But dearer far to me?
Yet mine own country,
    If I one day may see
Its spices and cedars,
    Its gold and ivory.

As I lie dreaming
    It rises, that land:
There rises before me
    Its green golden strand,
With its bowing cedars
    And its shining sand;
It sparkles and flashes
    Like a shaken brand.

Do angels lean nearer
    While I lie and long?
I see their soft plumage
    And catch their windy song,
Like the rise of a high tide
    Sweeping full and strong;
I mark the outskirts
    Of their reverend throng.

Oh what is a king here,
    Or what is a boor?

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Symbols

I watched a rosebud very long
    Brought on by dew and sun and shower,
    Waiting to see the perfect flower:
Then, when I thought it should be strong,
    It opened at the matin hour
And fell at evensong.

I watched a nest from day to day,
    A green nest full of pleasant shade,
    Wherein three speckled eggs were laid:
But when they should have hatched in May,
    The two old birds had grown afraid
Or tired, and flew away.

Then in my wrath I broke the bough
    That I had tended so with care,
    Hoping its scent should fill the air;
I crushed the eggs, not heeding how
    Their ancient promise had been fair:
I would have vengeance now.

But the dead branch spoke from the sod,
    And the eggs answered me again:
    Bec...

Christina Georgina Rossetti