Poetry of the Week: Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti is one of the most well known and highly regarded female poets of the Victorian period, and yet I'd barely heard of her until a friend recommended her. At the time I was collecting pre-20th century poetry for a project, preferably of a playful or irreverent nature, and her poems fit in perfectly. She's most well known for her poem Goblin Market, a longer, fantastic work involving goblin fruit and the dangers thereof, which you should absolutely read, but for today I'm sharing a few others. Her writing spans everything from children's poems to ruminations on loss and longingly cynical love poems. This collection only shows a small fraction of her breadth, but I had to restrain myself lest I post half her written works all at once. I'll doubtless post more of her poetry in future weeks, particularly since some of my favorites are missing from this batch!

Hope Is Like a Harebell
Hope is like a harebell, trembling from its birth;
Love is like a rose, the joy of all the earth.
Faith is like a lily lifted high and white;
Love is like a lovely rose, the world’s delight.
Harebells and sweet lilies show a thornless growth,
But the rose with all its thorns excels them both.

On the Wing
Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)
      We stood together in an open field;
      Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled,
Sporting at ease and courting full in view.
When loftier still a broadening darkness flew,
      Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed;
      Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield;
So farewell life and love and pleasures new.
Then as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground,
      Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson drops,
      I wept, and thought I turned towards you to weep:
      But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops
Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound
      Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep.

When I Am Dead, My Dearest
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.

Winter: My Secret
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 everyone 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 the truth untested still.

Spring’s an 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.