The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti A variorum edition: Edited, with textual notes and introductions, by R. W. Crump |
 | I. |
| II. |
| III. |
 | The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti |  |
ST. PETER.
“Launch out into the deep,” Christ spake of oldTo Peter: and he launched into the deep;
Strengthened should tempest wake which lay asleep,
Strengthened to suffer heat or suffer cold.
Thus, in Christ's Prescience: patient to behold
A fall, a rise, a scaling Heaven's high steep;
Prescience of Love, which deigned to overleap
The mire of human errors manifold.
Lord, Lover of Thy Peter, and of him
Beloved with craving of a humbled heart
Which eighteen hundred years have satisfied;
Hath he his throne among Thy Seraphim
Who love? or sits he on a throne apart,
Unique, near Thee, to love Thee human-eyed?
| The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti | |