[ { "title": "Before The Paling Of The Stars", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "Before the winter morn,", "Before the earliest cock crow,", "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." ], "linecount": "23" }, { "title": "Winter: My Secret", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:", "Perhaps some day, who knows?", "But not today; it froze, and blows, and snows,", "And you're too curious: fie!", "You want to hear it? well:", "Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.", "", "Or, after all, perhaps there's none:", "Suppose there is no secret after all,", "But only just my fun.", "Today's a nipping day, a biting day;", "In which one wants a shawl,", "A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:", "I cannot ope to every one who taps,", "And let the draughts come whistling thro' my hall;", "Come bounding and surrounding me,", "Come buffeting, astounding me,", "Nipping and clipping thro' my wraps and all.", "I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows", "His nose to Russian snows", "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 and 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 thro' the sunless hours.", "Perhaps some languid summer day,", "When drowsy birds sing less and less,", "And golden fruit is ripening to excess,", "If there's not too much sun nor too much cloud,", "And the warm wind is neither still nor loud,", "Perhaps my secret I may say,", "Or you may guess." ], "linecount": "34" }, { "title": "From Sunset to Star Rise", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "Go from me, summer friends, and tarry not:", "I am no summer friend, but wintry cold,", "A silly sheep benighted from the fold,", "A sluggard with a thorn-choked garden plot.", "Take counsel, sever from my lot your lot,", "Dwell in your pleasant places, hoard your gold;", "Lest you with me should shiver on the wold,", "Athirst and hungering on a barren spot.", "For I have hedged me with a thorny hedge,", "I live alone, I look to die alone:", "Yet sometimes, when a wind sighs through the sedge,", "Ghosts of my buried years, and friends come back,", "My heart goes sighing after swallows flown", "On sometime summer's unreturning track." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Is it Well with the Child?", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "SAFE where I cannot die yet,", " Safe where I hope to lie too,", "Safe from the fume and the fret;", " You, and you,", " Whom I never forget.", "Safe from the frost and the snow,", " Safe from the storm and the sun,", "Safe where the seeds wait to grow", " One by one,", " And to come back in blow." ], "linecount": "10" }, { "title": "A Birthday", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "My heart is like a singing bird", "Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;", "My heart is like an apple-tree", "Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;", "My heart is like a rainbow shell", "That paddles in a halcyon sea;", "My heart is gladder than all these", "Because my love is come to me.", "", "Raise me a dais of silk and down;", "Hang it with vair and purple dyes;", "Carve it in doves and pomegranates,", "And peacocks with a hundred eyes;", "Work it in gold and silver grapes,", "In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;", "Because the birthday of my life", "Is come, my love is come to me." ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "Later life", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "Something this foggy day, a something which", "Is neither of this fog nor of today,", "Has set me dreaming of the winds that play", "Past certain cliffs, along one certain beach,", "And turn the topmost edge of waves to spray:", "Ah pleasant pebbly strand so far away,", "So out of reach while quite within my reach,", "As out of reach as India or Cathay!", "I am sick of where I am and where I am not,", "I am sick of foresight and of memory,", "I am sick of all I have and all I see,", "I am sick of self, and there is nothing new;", "Oh weary impatient patience of my lot!", "Thus with myself: how fares it, Friends, with you?" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "From “Later Life”", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "VI", "We lack, yet cannot fix upon the lack:", "Not this, nor that; yet somewhat, certainly.", "We see the things we do not yearn to see", "Around us: and what see we glancing back?", "Lost hopes that leave our hearts upon the rack,", "Hopes that were never ours yet seem’d to be,", "For which we steer’d on life’s salt stormy sea", "Braving the sunstroke and the frozen pack.", "If thus to look behind is all in vain,", "And all in vain to look to left or right,", "Why face we not our future once again,", "Launching with hardier hearts across the main,", "Straining dim eyes to catch the invisible sight,", "And strong to bear ourselves in patient pain?", "", "IX", "Star Sirius and the Pole Star dwell afar", "Beyond the drawings each of other’s strength:", "One blazes through the brief bright summer’s length", "Lavishing life-heat from a flaming car;", "While one unchangeable upon a throne", "Broods o’er the frozen heart of earth alone,", "Content to reign the bright particular star", "Of some who wander or of some who groan.", "They own no drawings each of other’s strength,", "Nor vibrate in a visible sympathy,", "Nor veer along their courses each toward", "Yet are their orbits pitch’d in harmony", "Of one dear heaven, across whose depth and length", "Mayhap they talk together without speech." ], "linecount": "30" }, { "title": "Monna Innominata: A Sonnet of Sonnets", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "1", "", "Lo dм che han detto a' dolci amici addio. - Dante", "Amor, con quanto sforzo oggi mi vinci! - Petrarca", "", "Come back to me, who wait and watch for you:--", "Or come not yet, for it is over then,", "And long it is before you come again,", "So far between my pleasures are and few.", "While, when you come not, what I do I do", "Thinking \"Now when he comes,\" my sweetest when:\"", "For one man is my world of all the men", "This wide world holds; O love, my world is you.", "Howbeit, to meet you grows almost a pang", "Because the pang of parting comes so soon;", "My hope hangs waning, waxing, like a moon", "Between the heavenly days on which we meet:", "Ah me, but where are now the songs I sang", "When life was sweet because you call'd them sweet?", "", "2", "", "Era giа 1'ora che volge il desio. - Dante", "Ricorro al tempo ch' io vi vidi prima. - Petrarca", "", "I wish I could remember that first day,", "First hour, first moment of your meeting me,", "If bright or dim the season, it might be", "Summer or winter for aught I can say;", "So unrecorded did it slip away,", "So blind was I to see and to foresee,", "So dull to mark the budding of my tree", "That would not blossom yet for many a May.", "If only I could recollect it, such", "A day of days! I let it come and go", "As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;", "It seem'd to mean so little, meant so much;", "If only now I could recall that touch,", "First touch of hand in hand--Did one but know!", "", "", "3", "", "O ombre vane, fuor che ne l'aspetto! - Dante", "Immaginata guida la conduce. - Petrarca", "", "I dream of you to wake: would that I might", "Dream of you and not wake but slumber on;", "Nor find with dreams the dear companion gone,", "As summer ended summer birds take flight.", "In happy dreams I hold you full in sight,", "I blush again who waking look so wan;", "Brighter than sunniest day that ever shone,", "In happy dreams your smile makes day of night.", "Thus only in a dream we are at one,", "Thus only in a dream we give and take", "The faith that maketh rich who take or give;", "If thus to sleep is sweeter than to wake,", "To die were surely sweeter than to live,", "Though there be nothing new beneath the sun.", "", "", "4", "", "Poca favilla gran fliamma seconda. - Dante", "Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore,", "E sol ivi con voi rimansi amore. - Petrarca", "", "I lov'd you first: but afterwards your love", "Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song", "As drown'd the friendly cooings of my dove.", "Which owes the other most? my love was long,", "And yours one moment seem'd to wax more strong;", "I lov'd and guess'd at you, you construed me--", "And lov'd me for what might or might not be", "Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.", "For verily love knows not \"mine\" or \"thine;\"", "With separate \"I\" and \"thou\" free love has done,", "For one is both and both are one in love:", "Rich love knows nought of \"thine that is not mine;\"", "Both have the strength and both the length thereof,", "Both of us, of the love which makes us one.", "", "", "5", "", "Amor che a nullo amato amar perdona. - Dante", "Amor m'addusse in sм gioiosa spene. - Petrarca", "", "O my heart's heart, and you who are to me", "More than myself myself, God be with you,", "Keep you in strong obedience leal and true", "To Him whose noble service setteth free,", "Give you all good we see or can foresee,", "Make your joys many and your sorrows few,", "Bless you in what you bear and what you do,", "Yea, perfect you as He would have you be.", "So much for you; but what for me, dear friend?", "To love you without stint and all I can", "Today, tomorrow, world without an end;", "To love you much and yet to love you more,", "As Jordan at his flood sweeps either shore;", "Since woman is the helpmeet made for man.", "", "", "6", "", "Or puoi la quantitate", "Comprender de l'amor che a te mi scalda. - Dante", "Non vo' che da tal nodo mi scioglia. - Petrarca", "", "Trust me, I have not earn'd your dear rebuke,", "I love, as you would have me, God the most;", "Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost,", "Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look", "Unready to forego what I forsook;", "This say I, having counted up the cost,", "This, though I be the feeblest of God's host,", "The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook.", "Yet while I love my God the most, I deem", "That I can never love you overmuch;", "I love Him more, so let me love you too;", "Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such", "I cannot love you if I love not Him,", "I cannot love Him if I love not you.", "", "", "7", "", "Qui primavera sempre ed ogni frutto. - Dante", "Ragionando con meco ed io con lui. - Petrarca", "", "\"Love me, for I love you\"--and answer me,", "\"Love me, for I love you\"--so shall we stand", "As happy equals in the flowering land", "Of love, that knows not a dividing sea.", "Love builds the house on rock and not on sand,", "Love laughs what while the winds rave desperately;", "And who hath found love's citadel unmann'd?", "And who hath held in bonds love's liberty?", "My heart's a coward though my words are brave", "We meet so seldom, yet we surely part", "So often; there's a problem for your art!", "Still I find comfort in his Book, who saith,", "Though jealousy be cruel as the grave,", "And death be strong, yet love is strong as death.", "", "", "8", "", "Come dicesse a Dio: D'altro non calme. - Dante", "Spero trovar pietа non che perdono. - Petrarca", "", "\"I, if I perish, perish\"--Esther spake:", "And bride of life or death she made her fair", "In all the lustre of her perfum'd hair", "And smiles that kindle longing but to slake.", "She put on pomp of loveliness, to take", "Her husband through his eyes at unaware;", "She spread abroad her beauty for a snare,", "Harmless as doves and subtle as a snake.", "She trapp'd him with one mesh of silken hair,", "She vanquish'd him by wisdom of her wit,", "And built her people's house that it should stand:--", "If I might take my life so in my hand,", "And for my love to Love put up my prayer,", "And for love's sake by Love be granted it!", "", "", "9", "", "O dignitosa coscienza e netta! - Dante", "Spirto piщ acceso di virtuti ardenti. - Petrarca", "", "Thinking of you, and all that was, and all", "That might have been and now can never be,", "I feel your honour'd excellence, and see", "Myself unworthy of the happier call:", "For woe is me who walk so apt to fall,", "So apt to shrink afraid, so apt to flee,", "Apt to lie down and die (ah, woe is me!)", "Faithless and hopeless turning to the wall.", "And yet not hopeless quite nor faithless quite,", "Because not loveless; love may toil all night,", "But take at morning; wrestle till the break", "Of day, but then wield power with God and man:--", "So take I heart of grace as best I can,", "Ready to spend and be spent for your sake.", "", "", "10", "", "Con miglior corso e con migliore stella. - Dante", "La vita fugge e non s'arresta un' ora. - Petrarca", "", "Time flies, hope flags, life plies a wearied wing;", "Death following hard on life gains ground apace;", "Faith runs with each and rears an eager face,", "Outruns the rest, makes light of everything,", "Spurns earth, and still finds breath to pray and sing;", "While love ahead of all uplifts his praise,", "Still asks for grace and still gives thanks for grace,", "Content with all day brings and night will bring.", "Life wanes; and when love folds his wings above", "Tired hope, and less we feel his conscious pulse,", "Let us go fall asleep, dear friend, in peace:", "A little while, and age and sorrow cease;", "A little while, and life reborn annuls", "Loss and decay and death, and all is love.", "", "", "11", "", "Vien dietro a me e lascia dir le genti. - Dante", "Contando i casi della vita nostra. - Petrarca", "", "Many in aftertimes will say of you", "\"He lov'd her\"--while of me what will they say?", "Not that I lov'd you more than just in play,", "For fashion's sake as idle women do.", "Even let them prate; who know not what we knew", "Of love and parting in exceeding pain,", "Of parting hopeless here to meet again,", "Hopeless on earth, and heaven is out of view.", "But by my heart of love laid bare to you,", "My love that you can make not void nor vain,", "Love that foregoes you but to claim anew", "Beyond this passage of the gate of death,", "I charge you at the Judgment make it plain", "My love of you was life and not a breath.", "", "", "12", "", "Amor, che ne la mente mi ragiona. - Dante", "Amor vien nel bel viso di costei. - Petrarca", "", "If there be any one can take my place", "And make you happy whom I grieve to grieve,", "Think not that I can grudge it, but believe", "I do commend you to that nobler grace,", "That readier wit than mine, that sweeter face;", "Yea, since your riches make me rich, conceive", "I too am crown'd, while bridal crowns I weave,", "And thread the bridal dance with jocund pace.", "For if I did not love you, it might be", "That I should grudge you some one dear delight;", "But since the heart is yours that was mine own,", "Your pleasure is my pleasure, right my right,", "Your honourable freedom makes me free,", "And you companion'd I am not alone.", "", "", "13", "", "E drizzeremo gli occhi al Primo Amore. - Dante", "Ma trovo peso non da le mie braccia. - Petrarca", "", "If I could trust mine own self with your fate,", "Shall I not rather trust it in God's hand?", "Without Whose Will one lily doth not stand,", "Nor sparrow fall at his appointed date;", "Who numbereth the innumerable sand,", "Who weighs the wind and water with a weight,", "To Whom the world is neither small nor great,", "Whose knowledge foreknew every plan we plann'd.", "Searching my heart for all that touches you,", "I find there only love and love's goodwill", "Helpless to help and impotent to do,", "Of understanding dull, of sight most dim;", "And therefore I commend you back to Him", "Whose love your love's capacity can fill.", "", "", "14", "", "E la Sua Volontade и nostra pace. - Dante", "Sol con questi pensier, con altre chiome. - Petrarca", "", "Youth gone, and beauty gone if ever there", "Dwelt beauty in so poor a face as this;", "Youth gone and beauty, what remains of bliss?", "I will not bind fresh roses in my hair,", "To shame a cheek at best but little fair,--", "Leave youth his roses, who can bear a thorn,--", "I will not seek for blossoms anywhere,", "Except such common flowers as blow with corn.", "Youth gone and beauty gone, what doth remain?", "The longing of a heart pent up forlorn,", "A silent heart whose silence loves and longs;", "The silence of a heart which sang its songs", "While youth and beauty made a summer morn,", "Silence of love that cannot sing again." ], "linecount": "240" }, { "title": "A Better Ressurection", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "I have no wit, no words, no tears;", "My heart within me like a stone", "Is numbed too much for hopes or fears.", "Look right, look left, I dwell alone;", "I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief", "No everlasting hills I see;", "My life is in the falling leaf:", "O Jesus, quicken me.", "", "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;", "O Jesus, rise in me.", "", "My life is like a broken bowl,", "A broken bowl that cannot hold", "One drop of water for my soul", "Or cordial in the searching cold;", "Cast in the fire the perished thing;", "Melt and remould it, till it be", "A royal cup for Him, my King:", "O Jesus, drink of me." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "No, Thank You John", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "I never said I loved you, John:", "Why will you tease me day by day,", "And wax a weariness to think upon", "With always \"do\" and \"pray\"?", "", "You Know I never loved you, John;", "No fault of mine made me your toast:", "Why will you haunt me with a face as wan", "As shows an hour-old ghost?", "", "I dare say Meg or Moll would take", "Pity upon you, if you'd ask:", "And pray don't remain single for my sake", "Who can't perform the task.", "", "I have no heart?-Perhaps I have not;", "But then you're mad to take offence", "That don't give you what I have not got:", "Use your common sense.", "", "Let bygones be bygones:", "Don't call me false, who owed not to be true:", "I'd rather answer \"No\" to fifty Johns", "Than answer \"Yes\" to you.", "", "Let's mar our plesant days no more,", "Song-birds of passage, days of youth:", "Catch at today, forget the days before:", "I'll wink at your untruth.", "", "Let us strike hands as hearty friends;", "No more, no less; and friendship's good:", "Only don't keep in veiw ulterior ends, And points not understood", "", "In open treaty. Rise above", "Quibbles and shuffling off and on:", "Here's friendship for you if you like; but love,-", "No, thank you, John." ], "linecount": "31" }, { "title": "Spring Quiet", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "Gone were but the Winter,", "Come were but the Spring,", "I would go to a covert", "Where the birds sing;", "", "Where in the whitethorn", "Singeth a thrush,", "And a robin sings", "In the holly-bush.", "", "Full of fresh scents", "Are the budding boughs", "Arching high over", "A cool green house:", "", "Full of sweet scents,", "And whispering air", "Which sayeth softly:", "\"We spread no snare;", "", "\"Here dwell in safety,", "Here dwell alone,", "With a clear stream", "And a mossy stone.", "", "\"Here the sun shineth", "Most shadily;", "Here is heard an echo", "Of the far sea,", "Though far off it be.\"" ], "linecount": "25" }, { "title": "The Thread of Life", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "I", "The irresponsive silence of the land,", "The irresponsive sounding of the sea,", "Speak both one message of one sense to me:--", "Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand", "Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band", "Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;", "But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?", "What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand?--", "And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,", "And sometimes I remember days of old", "When fellowship seemed not so far to seek", "And all the world and I seemed much less cold,", "And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold,", "And hope felt strong and life itself not weak.", "", "II", "Thus am I mine own prison. Everything", "Around me free and sunny and at ease:", "Or if in shadow, in a shade of trees", "Which the sun kisses, where the gay birds sing", "And where all winds make various murmuring;", "Where bees are found, with honey for the bees;", "Where sounds are music, and where silences", "Are music of an unlike fashioning.", "Then gaze I at the merrymaking crew,", "And smile a moment and a moment sigh", "Thinking: Why can I not rejoice with you?", "But soon I put the foolish fancy by:", "I am not what I have nor what I do;", "But what I was I am, I am even I.", "", "III", "Therefore myself is that one only thing", "I hold to use or waste, to keep or give;", "My sole possession every day I live,", "And still mine own despite Time's winnowing.", "Ever mine own, while moons and seasons bring", "From crudeness ripeness mellow and sanitive;", "Ever mine own, till Death shall ply his sieve;", "And still mine own, when saints break grave and sing.", "And this myself as king unto my King", "I give, to Him Who gave Himself for me;", "Who gives Himself to me, and bids me sing", "A sweet new song of His redeemed set free;", "he bids me sing: O death, where is thy sting?", "And sing: O grave, where is thy victory?" ], "linecount": "45" }, { "title": "At Home", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "When I was dead, my spirit turned", "To seek the much-frequented house:", "I passed the door, and saw my friends", "Feasting beneath green orange boughs;", "From hand to hand they pushed the wine,", "They sucked the pulp of plum and peach;", "They sang, they jested, and they laughed,", "For each was loved of each.", "", "I listened to thier honest chat:", "Said one: \"To-morrow we shall be", "Plod plod along the featureless sands,", "And coasting miles and miles of sea.\"", "Said one: \"Before the turn of tide", "We will achieve the eyrie-seat.\"", "Said one: \"To-morrow shall be like", "To-day, but much more sweet.\"", "", "\"To-morrow,\" said they, strong with hope,", "And dwelt upon the pleasant way:", "\"To-morrow,\" cried they, one and all,", "While no one spoke of yesterday.", "Their life stood full at blessed noon;", "I, only I, had passed away:", "\"To-morrow and to-day,\" they cried;", "I was of yesterday.", "", "I shivered comfortless, but cast", "No chill across the table-cloth;", "I, all-forgotten, shivered, sad", "To stay, and yet to part how loth:", "I passed from the familiar room,", "I who from love had passed away,", "Like the remembrance of a guest", "That tarrieth but a day." ], "linecount": "32" } ]