Poems
1910
Christina Rossetti wrote poetry that burns with a quiet, insistent fire. Like Emily Dickinson, she withdrew from the world to wrestle privately with God, desire, and death, but her voice could not be more different: warmer, more sensuous, haunted by an erotic undertow that Victorian England preferred to ignore. This collection gathers fifty-three poems including her long masterpiece Goblin Market, a fairy tale in verse about two sisters and a fruit that will ruin you. It reads like a warning wrapped in nursery rhymes, its symbols of temptation and redemption cutting deeper than any sermon. Beyond that, there are sonnets that ache with longing, ballads about discarded women, and poems about faith that admit their own doubt. Rossetti refused to simplify desire or divinity. She wrote about what it feels like to want something you cannot have, to be tempted and terrified of your own wanting. This is poetry for anyone who has ever stood at the threshold of belief and found the door locked from inside.
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“For there is no friend like a sisterIn calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray,To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands””
— Christina Georgina Rossetti
“We must not look at goblin men,We must not buy their fruits:Who knows upon what soil they fedTheir hungry thirsty roots?””
— Christina Georgina Rossetti
“I have no heart?--Perhaps I have not;But then you're mad to take offenceThat I don't give you what I have not got:Use your own common sense.””
— Christina Georgina Rossetti
“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 furzeThat shakes in windy weatherAbove the rusy heather.””
— Christina Georgina Rossetti
“Evening by eveningAmong the Brookside rushes,Laura bow'd her head to hear,Lizzie veil'd her blushes:Crouching close togetherIn the cooling weather,With clasping arms and cautioning lips,With tingling cheeks and fingertips."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 the soil they fedTheir hungry thirsty roots?""Come buy," call the GoblinsHobbling down the glen””
— Christina Georgina Rossetti
“She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth.””
— Christina Georgina Rossetti
“Song"Two doves upon the selfsame branch,Two lilies on a single stem,Two butterflies upon one flower: Oh happy they who look on them.Who look upon them hand in handFlushed in the rosy summer light;Who look upon them hand in handAnd never give a thought to night.””
— Christina Georgina Rossetti
“I was a cottage maiden Hardened by sun and air,Contented with my cottage mates, Not mindful I was fair.Why did a great lord find me out, And praise my flaxen hair?Why did a great lord find me out To fill my heart with care?He lured me to his palace home”
— Christina Georgina Rossetti
“obstreperously,”
— Christina Georgina Rossetti
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Rossetti, Christina Georgina. Poems. Lex, lex-books.com/book/poems-710ea9ad-cd03-480f-804d-6417bed49de8.Rossetti, C. G. (1910). Poems. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/poems-710ea9ad-cd03-480f-804d-6417bed49de8Rossetti, Christina Georgina. Poems. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/poems-710ea9ad-cd03-480f-804d-6417bed49de8.
