Poems

POEMS.

BY

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.

BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1906.

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AUTHOR'S EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED

1876.

University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.

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TO

MY MOTHER,

IN ALL REVERENCE AND LOVE,

I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK.

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THE AUTHOR TO HER AMERICAN READERS.

My little book seems scarcely to admit of prefatory words: either it will speak for itself, or all my additions must fail to speak for it.

Its reappearance, however, in an American edition, gives me a welcome opportunity of acknowledging the courtesy and liberality of Messrs. Roberts Brothers, who have arranged with me and with my kind friend and publisher, Mr. Macmillan, to bring it before the American public.

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.

London.

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CONTENTS.

GOBLIN MARKET, ETC.

Goblin Market In the Round Tower at Jhansi, June 8, 1857 Dream-land At Home From Sunset to Starrise Love from the North Winter Rain A Dirge Confluents Noble Sisters Spring The Lambs of Grasmere, 1860 A Birthday Remember After Death An End My Dream Song The Hour and the Ghost A Summer Wish An Apple Gathering Song Maude Clare Echo Winter: My Secret Another Spring A Peal of Bells Fata Morgana "No, thank you, John" May A Pause of Thought Twilight Calm Wife to Husband Three Seasons Mirage Shut out Sound Sleep Song Song Dead before Death Bitter for Sweet "The Master is Come, and Calleth for Thee" Rest The First Spring Day The Convent Threshold Up-Hill

DEVOTIONAL PIECES.

"The Love of Christ which passeth Knowledge" "A Bruised Reed shall he not Break" A Better Resurrection Advent The Three Enemies One Certainty Christian and Jew Sweet Death Symbols "Consider the Lilies of the Field" The World A Testimony Sleep at Sea From House to Home Old and New Year Ditties Amen Mother Country

THE PRINCE'S PROGRESS, ETC.

The Prince's Progress Maiden-Song Jessie Cameron Spring Quiet The Poor Ghost A Portrait Dream-Love Twice Songs in a Cornfield A Year's Windfalls The Queen of Hearts One Day A Bird's-Eye View "Thy Brother's Blood Crieth" "To-day for Me" On the Wing Consider Beauty is Vain Maggie a Lady What would I give The Bourne Summer Autumn The Ghost's Petition Memory A Royal Princess Shall I Forget? Vanity of Vanities L. E. L. Life and Death Bird or Beast? Eve Grown and Flown A Farm Walk Somewhere or Other A Chill Child's Talk in April Gone for Ever Under the Rose Song By the Sea Days of Vanity Enrica, 1865 Once for All Autumn Violets "They Desire a Better Country" A Green Cornfield A Bride Song The Lowest Room Dead Hope A Daughter of Eve Venus' Looking-Glass Love lies Bleeding Bird Raptures My Friend Twilight Night A Bird Song A Smile and a Sigh

DEVOTIONAL PIECES.

Amor Mundi A Christmas Carol By the Waters of Babylon Paradise "I will lift up mine Eyes unto the Hills" Saints and Angels "When my Heart is Vexed, I will Complain" After Communion A Rose Plant in Jericho Who shall Deliver Me? Despised and Rejected Long Barren If Only Dost thou not Care? Weary in Well-Doing Martyrs' Song After this the Judgment Good Friday The Lowest Place

A PAGEANT AND OTHER POEMS.

The Key-Note The Months: A Pageant Pastime "Italia, io ti saluto!" Mirrors of Life and Death A Ballad of Boding Yet a little while He and She Monna Innominata "Luscious and Sorrowful" De Profundis Tempus fugit Golden Glories Johnny "Hollow-sounding and Mysterious" Maiden May Till To-morrow Death-Watches Touching "Never" Brandons both A Life's Parallels At Last Golden Silences In the Willow Shade Fluttered Wings A Fisher-Wife What's in a Name? Mariana Memento Mori "One Foot on Sea, and one on Shore" Buds and Babies Boy Johnny Freaks of Fashion An October Garden "Summer is ended" Passing and Glassing "I will arise" A Prodigal Son Soeur Louise de la Miséricorde An "immurata" Sister "If Thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not" The Thread of Life An Old-World Thicket "All Thy Works praise Thee, O Lord" Later Life "For Thine own Sake, O my God" Until the Day break "Of Him that was ready to perish" "Behold the Man!" The Descent from the Cross "It is finished" An Easter Carol "Behold a shaking" All Saints "Take care of him" A Martyr Why? "Love is strong as Death" Birchington Churchyard One Sea-side Grave Brother Bruin "A Helpmeet for him" A Song of Flight A Wintry Sonnet Resurgam To-day's Burden "There is a Budding Morrow in Midnight" Exultate Deo A Hope Carol Christmas Carols A Candlemas Dialogue Mary Magdalene and the other Mary Patience of Hope

GOBLIN MARKET.

Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpecked cherries, Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheeked peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries;-- All ripe together In summer weather,-- Morns that pass by, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come buy: Our grapes fresh from the vine, Pomegranates full and fine, Dates and sharp bullaces, Rare pears and greengages, Damsons and bilberries, Taste them and try: Currants and gooseberries, Bright-fire-like barberries, Figs to fill your mouth, Citrons from the South, Sweet to tongue and sound to eye; Come buy, come buy."

Evening by evening Among the brookside rushes, Laura bowed her head to hear, Lizzie veiled her blushes: Crouching close together In the cooling weather, With clasping arms and cautioning lips, With tingling cheeks and finger-tips. "Lie close," Laura said, Pricking up her golden head: "We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?" "Come buy," call the goblins Hobbling down the glen. "O," cried Lizzie, "Laura, Laura, You should not peep at goblin men." Lizzie covered up her eyes, Covered close lest they should look; Laura reared her glossy head, And whispered like the restless brook: "Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie, Down the glen tramp little men. One hauls a basket, One bears a plate, One lugs a golden dish Of many pounds' weight. How fair the vine must grow Whose grapes are so luscious; How warm the wind must blow Through those fruit bushes." "No," said Lizzie, "no, no, no; Their offers should not charm us, Their evil gifts would harm us." She thrust a dimpled finger In each ear, shut eyes and ran: Curious Laura chose to linger Wondering at each merchant man. One had a cat's face, One whisked a tail, One tramped at a rat's pace, One crawled like a snail, One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry, One like a ratel tumbled hurry-scurry. She heard a voice like voice of doves Cooing all together: They sounded kind and full of loves In the pleasant weather.

Laura stretched her gleaming neck Like a rush-imbedded swan, Like a lily from the beck, Like a moonlit poplar branch, Like a vessel at the launch When its last restraint is gone.

Backwards up the mossy glen Turned and trooped the goblin men, With their shrill repeated cry, "Come buy, come buy." When they reached where Laura was They stood stock still upon the moss, Leering at each other, Brother with queer brother; Signalling each other, Brother with sly brother. One set his basket down, One reared his plate; One began to weave a crown Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown (Men sell not such in any town); One heaved the golden weight Of dish and fruit to offer her: "Come buy, come buy," was still their cry. Laura stared but did not stir, Longed but had no money: The whisk-tailed merchant bade her taste In tones as smooth as honey, The cat-faced purr'd, The rat-paced spoke a word Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard; One parrot-voiced and jolly Cried "Pretty Goblin" still for "Pretty Polly";-- One whistled like a bird.

But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste: "Good folk, I have no coin; To take were to purloin: I have no copper in my purse, I have no silver either, And all my gold is on the furze That shakes in windy weather Above the rusty heather." "You have much gold upon your head," They answered altogether: "Buy from us with a golden curl." She clipped a precious golden lock, She dropped a tear more rare than pearl, Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red: Sweeter than honey from the rock, Stronger than man-rejoicing wine, Clearer than water flowed that juice; She never tasted such before, How should it cloy with length of use? She sucked and sucked and sucked the more Fruits which that unknown orchard bore; She sucked until her lips were sore; Then flung the emptied rinds away, But gathered up one kernel stone, And knew not was it night or day As she turned home alone.

Lizzie met her at the gate Full of wise upbraidings: "Dear, you should not stay so late, Twilight is not good for maidens; Should not loiter in the glen In the haunts of goblin men. Do you not remember Jeanie, How she met them in the moonlight, Took their gifts both choice and many, Ate their fruits and wore their flowers Plucked from bowers Where summer ripens at all hours? But ever in the noonlight She pined and pined away; Sought them by night and day, Found them no more, but dwindled and grew gray, Then fell with the first snow, While to this day no grass will grow Where she lies low: I planted daisies there a year ago That never blow. You should not loiter so." "Nay, hush," said Laura: "Nay, hush, my sister: I ate and ate my fill, Yet my mouth waters still; To-morrow night I will Buy more,"--and kissed her. "Have done with sorrow; I'll bring you plums to-morrow Fresh on their mother twigs, Cherries worth getting; You cannot think what figs My teeth have met in, What melons icy-cold Piled on a dish of gold Too huge for me to hold, What peaches with a velvet nap, Pellucid grapes without one seed: Odorous indeed must be the mead Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink, With lilies at the brink, And sugar-sweet their sap."