Love Poems by Christina
Rossetti (1830-1894)
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A Birthday
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My heart is like a
singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered 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.
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Sonnet
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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 that 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 seemed 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! |
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Uphill
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Does the road wind
uphill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the journey rake 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 labor you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yes, beds for all who come.
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Song
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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 see not the shadows,
I shall feel not the rain;
I shall hear not the nightingale
Sing on as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply may I remember
And haply may forget.
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