Christina Georgina Rossetti

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.

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.

(Lyra Messianica, 1864.)


Before the paling of the stars,
    Before the winter morn,
Before the earliest cockcrow
    Jesus Christ was born:
Born in a stable,
    Cradled in a manger,
In the world His hands had made
    Born a stranger.

Priest and king lay fast asleep
    In Jerusalem,
Young and old lay fast asleep
    In crowded Bethlehem:
Saint and Angel, ox and ass,
    Kept a watch together,
Before the Christmas daybreak
    In the winter weather.

Jesus on His Mother's breast
    In the stable cold,
Spotless Lamb of God was He,
    Shepherd of the fold:
Let us kneel with Mary maid,
    With Joseph bent and hoary,
With Saint and Angel, ox and ass,
    To hail the King of Glory.

1.

Man rising to the doom that shall not err, -
Which hath most dread: the arouse of all or each;
All kindreds of all nations of all speech,
Or one by one of him and him and her?
While dust reanimate begins to stir
Here, there, beyond, beyond, reach beyond reach;
While every wave refashions on the beach
Alive or dead-in-life some seafarer.
Now meeting doth not join or parting part;
True meeting and true parting wait till then,
When whoso meet are joined for evermore,
Face answering face and heart at rest in heart: -
God bring us all rejoicing to the shore
Of happy Heaven, His sheep home to the pen.


2.

Blessèd that flock safe penned in Paradise;
Blessèd this flock which tramps in weary ways;
All form one fl...

Shall Christ hang on the Cross, and we not look?
Heaven, earth, and hell stood gazing at the first,
While Christ for long-cursed man was counted cursed;
Christ, God and Man, Whom God the Father strook
And shamed and sifted and one while forsook: -
Cry shame upon our bodies we have nursed
In sweets, our souls in pride, our spirits immersed
In wilfulness, our steps run all acrook.
Cry shame upon us! for He bore our shame
In agony, and we look on at ease
With neither hearts on flame nor cheeks on flame:
What hast thou, what have I, to do with peace?
Not to send peace but send a sword He came,
And fire and fasts and tearful night-watches.

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.

Did any bird come flying
    After Adam and Eve,
When the door was shut against them
    And they sat down to grieve?

I think not Eve's peacock
    Splendid to see,
And I think not Adam's eagle;
    But a dove may be.

Did any beast come pushing
    Through the thorny hedge
Into the thorny thistly world,
    Out from Eden's edge?

I think not a lion,
    Though his strength is such;
But an innocent loving lamb
    May have done as much.

If the dove preached from her bough
    and the lamb from his sod,
The lamb and dove
    Were preachers sent from God.

The sunrise wakes the lark to sing,
The moonrise wakes the nightingale.
Come darkness, moonrise, every thing
That is so silent, sweet, and pale:
Come, so ye wake the nightingale.

Make haste to mount, thou wistful moon,
Make haste to wake the nightingale:
Let silence set the world in tune
To hearken to that wordless tale
Which warbles from the nightingale

O herald skylark, stay thy flight
One moment, for a nightingale
Floods us with sorrow and delight.
To-morrow thou shalt hoist the sail;
Leave us to-night the nightingale.

Summer is gone with all its roses,
    Its sun and perfumes and sweet flowers,
    Its warm air and refreshing showers:
    And even Autumn closes.

Yea, Autumn's chilly self is going,
    And winter comes which is yet colder;
    Each day the hoar-frost waxes bolder,
    And the last buds cease blowing.

"If you'll busk you as a bride
And make ready,
It's I will wed you with a ring,
O fair lady."

"Shall I busk me as a bride,
I so bonny,
For you to wed me with a ring,
O boy Johnny?"

"When you've busked you as a bride
And made ready,
Who else is there to marry you,
O fair lady?"

"I will find my lover out,
I so bonny,
And you shall bear my wedding-train,
O boy Johnny."

Oh fair Milly Brandon, a young maid, a fair maid!
All her curls are yellow and her eyes are blue,
And her cheeks were rosy red till a secret care made
Hollow whiteness of their brightness as a care will do.

Still she tends her flowers, but not as in the old days,
Still she sings her songs, but not the songs of old:
If now it be high Summer her days seem brief and cold days,
If now it be high Summer her nights are long and cold.

If you have a secret keep it, pure maid Milly;
Life is filled with troubles and the world with scorn;
And pity without love is at best times hard and chilly,
Chilling sore and stinging sore a heart forlorn.

Walter Brandon, do you guess Milly Brandon's secret?
Many things you know, but not everything,
With your locks like raven's...

A dancing Bear grotesque and funny
Earned for his master heaps of money,
Gruff yet good-natured, fond of honey,
And cheerful if the day was sunny.
Past hedge and ditch, past pond and wood
He tramped, and on some common stood;
There, cottage children circling gaily,
He in their midmost footed daily.
Pandean pipes and drum and muzzle
Were quite enough his brain to puzzle:
But like a philosophic bear
He let alone extraneous care
And danced contented anywhere.

Still, year on year, and wear and tear,
Age even the gruffest, bluffest bear.
A day came when he scarce could prance,
And when his master looked askance
On dancing Bear who would not dance.

To looks succeeded blows; hard blows
Battered his ears and poor old nose.
From bluff an...

A million buds are born that never blow,
That sweet with promise lift a pretty head
To blush and wither on a barren bed
And leave no fruit to show.

Sweet, unfulfilled. Yet have I understood
One joy, by their fragility made plain:
Nothing was ever beautiful in vain,
Or all in vain was good.

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.

B.C. 570

(Macmillan's Magazine, October 1866.)


Here where I dwell I waste to skin and bone;
    The curse is come upon me, and I waste
    In penal torment powerless to atone.
The curse is come on me, which makes no haste
    And doth not tarry, crushing both the proud
    Hard man and him the sinner double-faced.
Look not upon me, for my soul is bowed
    Within me, as my body in this mire;
    My soul crawls dumb-struck, sore-bested and cowed.
As Sodom and Gomorrah scourged by fire,
    As Jericho before God's trumpet-peal,
    So we the elect ones perish in His ire.
Vainly we gird on sackcloth, vainly kneel
    With famished faces toward Jerusalem:
    His heart is shut against us not to feel,
His ears against our cry He shutte...

I wish you were a pleasant wren,
    And I your small accepted mate;
How we'd look down on toilsome men!
    We'd rise and go to bed at eight
    Or it may be not quite so late.

Then you should see the nest I'd build,
    The wondrous nest for you and me;
The outside rough perhaps, but filled
    With wool and down; ah, you should see
    The cosy nest that it would be.

We'd have our change of hope and fear,
    Small quarrels, reconcilements sweet:
I'd perch by you to chirp and cheer,
    Or hop about on active feet,
    And fetch you dainty bits to eat.

We'd be so happy by the day,
    So safe and happy through the night,
We both should feel, and I should say,
    It's all one season of delight,
And we'll make merry whilst we...

'Oh happy happy land!
Angels like rushes stand
    About the wells of light.' -
    'Alas, I have not eyes for this fair sight:
Hold fast my hand.' -

'As in a soft wind, they
Bend all one blessed way,
    Each bowed in his own glory, star with star.' -
    'I cannot see so far,
    Here shadows are.' -

'White-winged the cherubim,
Yet whiter seraphim,
    Glow white with intense fire of love.' -
'Mine eyes are dim:
    I look in vain above,
And miss their hymn.' -

'Angels, Archangels cry
One to other ceaselessly
    (I hear them sing)
    One "Holy, Holy, Holy" to their King.' -
'I do not hear them, I.' -

'At one side Paradise
    Is curtained from the rest,
Made green for wearied eyes;
    Much so...

1.

Whoso hears a chiming for Christmas at the nighest,
Hears a sound like Angels chanting in their glee,
Hears a sound like palm-boughs waving in the highest,
Hears a sound like ripple of a crystal sea.

Sweeter than a prayer-bell for a saint in dying,
Sweeter than a death-bell for a saint at rest,
Music struck in Heaven with earth's faint replying,
"Life is good, and death is good, for Christ is Best."


2.

A holy, heavenly chime
Rings fulness in of time,
And on His Mother's breast
Our Lord God ever-Blest
Is laid a Babe at rest.

Stoop, Spirits unused to stoop,
Swoop, Angels, flying swoop,
Adoring as you gaze,
Uplifting hymns of praise, -
"Grace to the Full of Grace!"

The cave is cold and strait
T...