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The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti

A variorum edition: Edited, with textual notes and introductions, by R. W. Crump

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“They shall be as white as snow.”

Whiteness most white. Ah, to be clean again
In mine own sight and God's most holy sight!
To reach thro' any flood or fire of pain
Whiteness most white:

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To learn to hate the wrong and love the right
Even while I walk thro' shadows that are vain,
Descending thro' vain shadows into night.
Lord, not today: yet some day bliss for bane
Give me, for mortal frailty give me might,
Give innocence for guilt, and for my stain
Whiteness most white.