![previous section previous section](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/b_prev.gif) | The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti | ![next section next section](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/b_next.gif) |
|
ST. PETER.
“Launch out into the deep,” Christ spake of old
To 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?
![previous section previous section](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/b_prev.gif) | The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti | ![next section next section](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/b_next.gif) |
|