The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti :: :: University of Virginia Library

I looked for that which is not, nor can be,
And hope deferred made my heart sick in truth;
But years must pass before a hope of youth
Is resigned utterly.

I watched and waited with a steadfast will:
And though the object seemed to flee away
That I so longed for; ever, day by day,
I watched and waited still.

Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more:
My expectation wearies and shall cease;
I will resign it now and be at peace:—
Yet never gave it o'er.

Sometimes I said: It is an empty name
I long for; to a name why should I give
The peace of all the days I have to live?—
Yet gave it all the same.

Alas, thou foolish one! alike unfit
For healthy joy and salutary pain;
Thou knowest the chase useless, and again
Turnest to follow it.

2.

My happy happy dream is finished with,
My dream in which alone I lived so long.
My heart slept—woe is me, it wakeneth;
Was weak—I thought it strong.

Oh weary wakening from a life-true dream:
Oh pleasant dream from which I wake in pain:
I rested all my trust on things that seem,
And all my trust is vain.

233

I must pull down my palace that I built,
Dig up the pleasure-gardens of my soul;
Must change my laughter to sad tears for guilt,
My freedom to control.

Now all the cherished secrets of my heart,
Now all my hidden hopes are turned to sin:
Part of my life is dead, part sick, and part
Is all on fire within.

The fruitless thought of what I might have been
Hauthing me ever will not let me rest:
A cold north wind has withered all my green,
My sun is in the west.

But where my palace stood, with the same stone,
I will uprear a shady hermitage;
And there my spirit shall keep house alone,
Accomplishing its age:

There other garden beds shall lie around
Full of sweet-briar and incense-bearing thyme;
There I will sit, and listen for the sound
Of the last lingering chime.

3.

I thought to deal the death-stroke at a blow,
To give all, once for all, but nevermore;—
Then sit to hear the low waves fret the shore,
Or watch the silent snow.

“Oh rest,” I thought, “in silence and the dark;
Oh rest, if nothing else, from head to feet:
Though I may see no more the poppied wheat,
Or sunny soaring lark.

“These chimes are slow, but surely strike at last;
This sand is slow, but surely droppeth thro';
And much there is to suffer, much to do,
Before the time be past.

234

“So will I labour, but will not rejoice:
Will do and bear, but will not hope again;
Gone dead alike to pulses of quick pain,
And pleasure's counterpoise:”

I said so in my heart, and so I thought
My life would lapse, a tedious monotone:
I thought to shut myself, and dwell alone
Unseeking and unsought.

But first I tired, and then my care grew slack;
Till my heart slumbered, may-be wandered too:—
I felt the sunshine glow again, and knew
The swallow on its track;

All birds awoke to building in the leaves,
All buds awoke to fulness and sweet scent,
Ah, too, my heart woke unawares, intent
On fruitful harvest sheaves.

Full pulse of life, that I had deemed was dead,
Full throb of youth, that I had deemed at rest,—
Alas, I cannot build myself a nest,
I cannot crown my head

With royal purple blossoms for the feast,
Nor flush with laughter, nor exult in song;—
These joys may drift, as time now drifts along;
And cease, as once they ceased.

I may pursue, and yet may not attain,
Athirst and panting all the days I live:
Or seem to hold, yet nerve myself to give
What once I gave, again.