University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti

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

expand sectionI. 
collapse sectionII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIV. 
collapse sectionV. 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
collapse section 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
expand section 
  
  
  
expand section 
expand section 
expand sectionIII. 

Floral Teaching.

O ye red-blushing summer roses, ye
Who are like queens, crowned with a rich perfume,
In whose deep heart there is no shade of gloom,
Who are a pasture for the honey-bee;
Surely your days and nights pass happily:
And when the earth, your mother, doth resume
Your little lives, do ye not think the tomb
Is full of soft leaves and looks pleasantly?
So be it with me: through life so may I deem
That this world's course is ordered well, and give
My help to others and my loving heed.

154

Then when the day comes that it is decreed
I am to die, may I not cease to live,
But rest awhile waiting the morning beam.