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The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti

A variorum edition: Edited, with textual notes and introductions, by R. W. Crump
Rossetti, Christina Georgina (1830-1894)

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VOLUME I
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VOLUME II
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I Sing-Song A Nursery Rhyme Book (1872)
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II Poems Added in Sing-Song A Nursery Rhyme Book (1893)
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III A Pageant and Other Poems (1881)
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IV Poems Added in Poems (1888)
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V Verses (1893)
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“OUT OF THE DEEP HAVE I CALLED UNTO THEE, O LORD.”
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CHRIST OUR ALL IN ALL.
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SOME FEASTS AND FASTS.
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GIFTS AND GRACES.
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THE WORLD. SELF-DESTRUCTION.
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DIVERS WORLDS. TIME AND ETERNITY.
  
[Earth has clear call of daily bells]
  
“Escape to the Mountain.”
  
[I lift mine eyes to see: earth vanisheth.]
  
“Yet a little while.”
  
“Behold, it was very good.”
  
“Whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.”
  
[This near-at-hand land breeds pain by measure]
  
“Was Thy Wrath against the Sea?”
  
“And there was no more Sea.”
  
[Roses on a brier]
  
[We are those who tremble at Thy word]
  
“Awake, thou that sleepest.”
  
[We know not when, we know not where]
  
“I will lift up mine eyes unto the Hills.”
  
“Then whose shall those things be?”
  
“His Banner over me was Love.”
  
[Beloved, yield thy time to God, for He]
  
[Time seems not short]
  
[The half moon shows a face of plaintive sweetness]
  
“As the Doves to their windows.”
  
[Oh knell of a passing time]
  
[Time passeth away with its pleasure and pain]
  
“The Earth shall tremble at the Look of Him.”
  
[Time lengthening, in the lengthening seemeth long]
  
“All Flesh is Grass.”
  
[Heaven's chimes are slow, but sure to strike at last]
  
“There remaineth therefore a Rest to the People of God.”
  
[Parting after parting]
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“They put their trust in Thee, and were not confounded.”
  
[Short is time, and only time is bleak]
  
For Each.
  
For All.
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NEW JERUSALEM AND ITS CITIZENS.
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SONGS FOR STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS.
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VOLUME III

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29

A TRIAD.

Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
All on the threshold, yet all short of life.
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