Poems by Christina Georgina Rossetti Part 6

Alas, thou foolish one! alike unfit For healthy joy and salutary pain: Thou knowest the chase useless, and again Turnest to follow it.

TWILIGHT CALM.

O pleasant eventide!

Clouds on the western side Grow gray and grayer, hiding the warm sun: The bees and birds, their happy labors done, Seek their close nests and bide.

Screened in the leafy wood The stock-doves sit and brood: The very squirrel leaps from bough to bough But lazily; pauses; and settles now Where once he stored his food.

One by one the flowers close, Lily and dewy rose Shutting their tender petals from the moon: The gra.s.shoppers are still; but not so soon Are still the noisy crows.

The dormouse squats and eats Choice little dainty bits Beneath the spreading roots of a broad lime; Nibbling his fill he stops from time to time And listens where he sits.

From far the lowings come Of cattle driven home: From farther still the wind brings fitfully The vast continual murmur of the sea, Now loud, now almost dumb.

The gnats whirl in the air, The evening gnats; and there The owl opes broad his eyes and wings to sail For prey; the bat wakes; and the sh.e.l.l-less snail Comes forth, clammy and bare.

Hark! that's the nightingale, Telling the self-same tale Her song told when this ancient earth was young: So echoes answered when her song was sung In the first wooded vale.

We call it love and pain The pa.s.sion of her strain; And yet we little understand or know: Why should it not be rather joy that so Throbs in each throbbing vein?

In separate herds the deer Lie; here the bucks, and here The does, and by its mother sleeps the fawn: Through all the hours of night until the dawn They sleep, forgetting fear.

The hare sleeps where it lies, With wary half-closed eyes; The c.o.c.k has ceased to crow, the hen to cluck: Only the fox is out, some heedless duck Or chicken to surprise.

Remote, each single star Comes out, till there they are All s.h.i.+ning brightly: how the dews fall damp!

While close at hand the glow-worm lights her lamp Or twinkles from afar.

But evening now is done As much as if the sun Day-giving had arisen in the east: For night has come; and the great calm has ceased, The quiet sands have run.

WIFE TO HUSBAND.

Pardon the faults in me, For the love of years ago: Good by.

I must drift across the sea, I must sink into the snow, I must die.

You can bask in this sun, You can drink wine, and eat: Good by.

I must gird myself and run, Though with unready feet: I must die.

Blank sea to sail upon, Cold bed to sleep in: Good by.

While you clasp, I must be gone For all your weeping: I must die.

A kiss for one friend, And a word for two,-- Good by:-- A lock that you must send, A kindness you must do: I must die.

Not a word for you, Not a lock or kiss, Good by.

We, one, must part in two: Verily death is this: I must die.

THREE SEASONS.

"A cup for hope!" she said, In springtime ere the bloom was old: The crimson wine was poor and cold By her mouth's richer red.

"A cup for love!" how low, How soft the words; and all the while Her blush was rippling with a smile Like summer after snow.

"A cup for memory!"

Cold cup that one must drain alone: While autumn winds are up and moan Across the barren sea.

Hope, memory, love: Hope for fair morn, and love for day, And memory for the evening gray And solitary dove.

MIRAGE.

The hope I dreamed of was a dream, Was but a dream; and now I wake Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old, For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree, A weeping willow in a lake; I hang my silenced harp there, wrung and snapt For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart; My silent heart, lie still and break: Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed For a dream's sake.

SHUT OUT.

The door was shut. I looked between Its iron bars; and saw it lie, My garden, mine, beneath the sky, Pied with all flowers bedewed and green:

From bough to bough the song-birds crossed, From flower to flower the moths and bees; With all its nests and stately trees It had been mine, and it was lost.

A shadowless spirit kept the gate, Blank and unchanging like the grave.

I peering through said: "Let me have Some buds to cheer my outcast state."

He answered not. "Or give me, then, But one small twig from shrub or tree; And bid my home remember me Until I come to it again."

The spirit was silent; but he took Mortar and stone to build a wall; He left no loophole great or small Through which my straining eyes might look:

So now I sit here quite alone Blinded with tears; nor grieve for that, For naught is left worth looking at Since my delightful land is gone.

A violet bed is budding near, Wherein a lark has made her nest: And good they are, but not the best; And dear they are, but not so dear.