Christina G. Rossetti

Requiem

When I am dead, my dearest,
    Sing no sad songs for me:
Plant thou no roses at my head,
     Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
     With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
     And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
     I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
     Sing on, as if in pain;
And dreaming through the twilight
     That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
     And haply may forget.

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
     Gone far away into the silent land;
     When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
     You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
     Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
     And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
     For if the darkness and corruption leave
     A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

De Profundis

Oh why is heaven built so far,
     Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
     That hangs afloat.

I would not care to reach the moon,
     One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
     Beyond my range.

I never watch the scatter'd fire
     Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
     And all in vain:

For I am bound with fleshly bands,
     Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
     And catch at hope.

Dream Land

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
     Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
     She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
     Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
     And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
     That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
     The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
     Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
     Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
     Her perfect peace.

Up-Hill

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
     Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
     From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
     A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
     You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
     Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
     They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
     Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
     Yea, beds for all who come.

A Daughter of Eve

A fool I was to sleep at noon,
     And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
     A fool to snap my lily.

My garden-plot I have not kept;
     Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
     It's winter now I waken.

Talk what you please of future spring
     And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
     I sit alone with sorrow.

May

I cannot tell you how it was,
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and sunny day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last egg had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird foregone its mate.

I cannot tell you what it was,
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
Like all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and gray.

From Sunset to Star Rise

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.