If Only

If I might only love my God and die!
    But now He bids me love Him and live on,
    Now when the bloom of all my life is gone,
The pleasant half of life has quite gone by.
My tree of hope is lopped that spread so high,
    And I forget how summer glowed and shone,
    While autumn grips me with its fingers wan
And frets me with its fitful windy sigh.
When autumn passes then must winter numb,
    And winter may not pass a weary while,
    But when it passes spring shall flower again;
    And in that spring who weepeth now shall smile,
    Yea, they shall wax who now are on the wane,
Yea, they shall sing for love when Christ shall come.

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

Summer Is Ended.

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Simple Poetry

All Thy Works Praise Thee, O Lord. - A Processional Of Creation.

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Simple Poetry

Maiden-Song

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.

Grown And Flown

I loved my love from green of Spring
    Until sere Autumn's fall;
But now that leaves are withering
    How should one love at all?
    One heart's too small
For hunger, cold, love, everything.

I loved my love on sunny days
    Until late Summer's wane;
But now that frost begins to glaze
    How should one love again?
    Nay, love and pain
Walk wide apart in diverse ways.

I loved my love - alas to see
    That this should be, alas!
I thought that this could scarcely be,
    Yet has it come to pass:
    Sweet sweet love was,
Now bitter bitter grown to me.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

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 t...

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Gone For Ever

O happy rose-bud blooming
    Upon thy parent tree,
Nay, thou art too presuming;
For soon the earth entombing
    Thy faded charms shall be,
And the chill damp consuming.

O happy skylark springing
    Up to the broad blue sky,
Too fearless in thy winging,
Too gladsome in thy singing,
    Thou also soon shalt lie
Where no sweet notes are ringing.

And through life's shine and shower
    We shall have joy and pain;
But in the summer bower,
And at the morning hour,
    We still shall look in vain
For the same bird and flower.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

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,...

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Patience Of Hope.

The flowers that bloom in sun and shade
And glitter in the dew,
The flowers must fade.
The birds that build their nest and sing
When lovely spring is new,
Must soon take wing.

The sun that rises in his strength
To wake and warm the world,
Must set at length.
The sea that overflows the shore
With billows frothed and curled,
Must ebb once more.

All come and go, all wax and wane,
O Lord, save only Thou
Who dost remain
The Same to all eternity.
All things which fail us now
We trust to Thee.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

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