Christina Rossetti died December 29, 1894


The stars are strong in the deeps of the lustrous night,
Cold and splendid as death if his dawn be bright;
Cold as the cast-off garb that is cold as clay,
Splendid and strong as a spirit intense as light.
A soul more sweet than the morning of new-born May
Has passed with the year that has passed from the world away.
A song more sweet than the morning's first-born song
Again will hymn not among us a new year's day.
Not here, not here shall the carol of joy grown strong
Ring rapture now, and uplift us, a spell-struck throng,
From dream to vision of life that the soul may see
By death's grace only, if death do its trust no wrong.
Scarce yet the days and the starry nights are three
Since here among us a spirit abo...

I rose up with the sun
And climbed the hill.
I saw the white mists run
And shadows run
Down into hollow woods.

I went with the white clouds
That swept the hill.
A wind struck the low hedge trees
And clustering trees,
And rocked in each tall elm.

The long afternoon was calm
When down the hill
I came, and felt the air cool,
The shadows cool;
And I walked on footsore,

Saying, "But two hours more,
Then, the last hill....
Surely this road I know,
These hills I know,
All the unknown is known,

"And that barn, black and lone,
High on the hill--
There the long road ends,
The long day ends,
And travelling is over." ...

Nor thought nor travelling's over.
Here on the hill
The black barn i...

Surprised by joy, impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport O! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recall’d thee to my mind
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss? That thought’s return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

All are architects of Fate,
    Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
    Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low;
    Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
    Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,
    Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
    Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;
    Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
    Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,
    Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
    For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,
    Both the unseen and ...

I

There are faeries, bright of eye,
Who the wildflowers' warders are:
Ouphes, that chase the firefly;
Elves, that ride the shooting-star:
Fays, who in a cobweb lie,
Swinging on a moonbeam bar;
Or who harness bumblebees,
Grumbling on the clover leas,
To a blossom or a breeze -
That's their faery car.
If you care, you too may see
There are faeries. - Verily,
There are faeries.

II

There are faeries. I could swear
I have seen them busy, where
Roses loose their scented hair,
In the moonlight weaving, weaving,

Out of starlight and the dew,
Glinting gown and shimmering shoe;
Or, within a glowworm lair,
From the dark earth slowly heaving
Mushrooms whiter than the moon,
On whose tops they sit and croon,

Tug at the net,
Haul at the net,
Strip off the quivering fish;
Hid in the mist
The winds whist,
Is like my heart's wish.

What is your wish,
Your heart's wish?
Is it for home on the hills?
Strip off the fish,
The silver fish,
Caught by their rosy gills.

How can I know,
I love you so,
Each little thought I get
Is held so,
It dies you know,
Caught in your heart's net.

Tug at your net,
Your heart's net,
Strip off my silver fancies;
Keep them in rhyme,
For a dull time,
Fragile as frost pansies.

Montparnasse,

April 1914.

All day the sun has shone into my little attic, a bitter sunshine that brightened yet did not warm. And so as I toiled and toiled doggedly enough, many were the looks I cast at the three faggots I had saved to cook my evening meal. Now, however, my supper is over, my pipe alight, and as I stretch my legs before the embers I have at last a glow of comfort, a glimpse of peace.




My Garret



Here is my Garret up five flights of stairs;
Here's where I deal in dreams and ply in fancies,
Here is the wonder-shop of all my wares,
My sounding sonnets and my red romances.
Here's where I challenge Fate and ring my rhymes,
And grope at glory - aye, and starve at times.

Here is my Stronghold: stout of heart am I,
Gre...

"How disappeared he?" Ask the newt and toad;
Ask of his fellow-men, and they will tell
How he was found, cold as an icicle,
Under an arch of that forlorn abode;
Where he, unpropped, and by the gathering flood
Of years hemmed round, had dwelt, prepared to try
Privation's worst extremities, and die
With no one near save the omnipresent God.
Verily so to live was an awful choice
A choice that wears the aspect of a doom;
But in the mould of mercy all is cast
For Souls familiar with the eternal Voice;
And this forgotten Taper to the last
Drove from itself, we trust, all frightful gloom.

Like an old battle, youth is wild
With bugle and spear, and counter cry,
Fanfare and drummery, yet a child
Dreaming of that sweet chivalry,
The piercing terror cannot see.

He, with a mild and serious eye
Along the azure of the years,
Sees the sweet pomp sweep hurtling by;
But he sees not death's blood and tears,
Sees not the plunging of the spears.

And all the strident horror of
Horse and rider, in red defeat,
Is only music fine enough
To lull him into slumber sweet
In fields where ewe and lambkin bleat.

O, if with such simplicity
Himself take arms and suffer war;
With beams his targe shall gilded be,
Though in the thickening gloom be far
The steadfast light of any star!

Though hoarse War's eagle on him perch,
Q...

Who says I wrong thee, my half-opened rose?
Little he knows of thee or me, or love. -
I am so tender of thy fragile youth,
Yea, in my hours of wildest ecstasy,
Keeping close-bitted each careering sense.
Only I give mine eyes unmeasured law
To feed them where they will, and their delight
Was curbed at first, until thy tender shame
Died in the bearing of thy first born joy.

I am not cruel, my half-opened rose,
Though in the sunshine of my own desire
I have uncurled thy petals to the light
And fed the tendrils of thy dawning sense
With delicate caresses, till they leave
Thee tremulous with the newness of thy joy,
Sharing thy lover's fire with innocent flame.

Others will wrong thee, that I well foresee,
Being a man, knowing my fellow men,

    "Stay, mother, stay, for the storm is abroad,
And the tempest is very wild;
It's a fearful night with no ray of light,
Oh stay with your little child!"

    "Hush darling!" the mother, with white lips said -
"Lie still till I come again,
God's angels blest will watch o'er thy rest
While I am abroad in the rain!
    Thy father, child? - oh, I quake with fear
When I think where he may be,
And I dare not stay till the dawn of day -
I must hasten forth to see!"

    Then the young child buried her tangled curls
In the ragged counterpane,
While the half-clad mother went forth alone
In the blinding wind and rain.

    Down many a narrow, slippery lane,
Down many a long, dark street,
Went that shivering form thro' the pelting storm
O...

Air--Blind Mary.


I.

There flows from her spirit such love and delight,
That the face of Blind Mary is radiant with light--
As the gleam from a homestead through darkness will show
Or the moon glimmer soft through the fast falling snow.


II.

Yet there's a keen sorrow comes o'er her at times,
As an Indian might feel in our northerly climes!
And she talks of the sunset, like parting of friends,
And the starlight, as love, that not changes nor ends.


III.

Ah! grieve not, sweet maiden, for star or for sun,
For the mountains that tower or the rivers that run--
For beauty and grandeur, and glory, and light,
Are seen by the spirit, and not by the sight.


IV.

In vain for the thoughtless ar...

Rose-bosom'd and rose-limb'd
With eyes of dazzling bright
Shakes Venus mid the twinèd boughs of the night;
Rose-limb'd, soft-stepping
From low bough to bough
Shaking the wide-hung starry fruitage--dimmed
Its bloom of snow
By that sole planetary glow.

Venus, avers the astronomer,
Not thus idly dancing goes
Flushing the eternal orchard with wild rose.
She through ether burns
Outpacing planetary earth,
And ere two years triumphantly returns,
And again wave-like swelling flows,
And again her flashing apparition comes and goes.

This we have not seen,
No heavenly courses set,
No flight unpausing through a void serene:
But when eve clears,
Arises Venus as she first uprose
Stepping the shaken boughs among,
And in her bosom glo...

In the rapture of life and of living,
    I lift up my heart and rejoice,
And I thank the great Giver for giving
    The soul of my gladness a voice.
In the glow of the glorious weather,
    In the sweet-scented sensuous air,
My burdens seem light as a feather -
    They are nothing to bear.

In the strength and the glory of power,
    In the pride and the pleasure of wealth,
(For who dares dispute me my dower
    Of talents and youth-time and health?)
I can laugh at the world and its sages -
    I am greater than seers who are sad,
For he is most wise in all ages
    Who knows how to be glad.

I lift up my eyes to Apollo,
    The god of the beautiful days,
And my spirit soars off like a swallow
    And is lost in the light of its rays...

In this fair stranger’s eyes of grey
Thine eyes, my love, I see.
I shudder: for the passing day
Had borne me far from thee.

This is the curse of life: that not
A nobler calmer train
Of wiser thoughts and feelings blot
Our passions from our brain;

But each day brings its petty dust
Our soon-chok’d souls to fill,
And we forget because we must,
And not because we will.

I struggle towards the light; and ye,
Once-long’d-for storms of love!
If with the light ye cannot be,
I bear that ye remove.

I struggle towards the light; but oh,
While yet the night is chill,
Upon Time’s barren, stormy flow,
Stay with me, Marguerite, still!

An ivy-mantled cottage smiled,
    Deep-wooded near a streamlet's side,
Where dwelt the village-pastor's child,
    In all her maiden bloom and pride.
Proud suitors paid their court and duty
To this romantic sylvan beauty:
Yet none of all the swains who sought her,
Was worthy of the pastor's daughter.

The town-gallants crossed hill and plain,
    To seek the groves of her retreat;
And many followed in her train,
    To lay their riches at her feet.
But still, for all their arts so wary,
From home they could not lure the fairy.
A maid without a heart they thought her,
And so they left the pastor's daughter.

One balmy eve in dewy spring
    A bard became her father's guest:
He struck his harp, and every string
    To love vibrated in h...

Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning,
We will come back to earth some fragrant night,
And take these lanes to find the sea, and bending
Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.

We will come down at night to these resounding beaches
And the long gentle thunder of the sea,
Here for a single hour in the wide starlight
We shall be happy, for the dead are free.

Just see that we get full value
Of that for which we have paid.
The price has been a heavy one,
But the goods are there--and we've paid-.
We've paid in our toil and our woundings;
We've paid in the blood we've shed;
We've paid in our bitter hardships;
We've paid with our many dead.

It's not payment in kind we ask for,
Two wrongs don't make much of a right.
All we ask is--that, what we have paid for,
You secure for us, all right and tight.

The Peace of the World's what we're after;
We've all had enough of King Cain,
And the Kaiser and all his bully-men,
With their World-Power big on the brain.

No!--we fought with a definite object,
And it's this--and we want it made plain,--
That it's God, and not any devil,
That's to rule in th...