Quotes by Christina Rossetti

For there is no friend like a sisterIn calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray,To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands

Ah me, but where are now the songs I sangWhen life was sweet because you call’d them sweet?

What are heavy? sea-sand and sorrow.What are brief? today and tomorrow.What are frail? spring blossoms and youth.What are deep? the ocean and truth.

Fair as the moon and joyful as the light;Tot wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim; Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;Not as she is, but as she fills his dreams.

For if the darkness and corruption leaveA vestige of the thoughts that once I had,Better by far you should forget and smileThan that you should remember and be sad.

In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, Snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long ago.

I lock my door upon myself, And bar them out; but who shall wall Self from myself, most loathed of all?

He feeds upon her face by day and night,And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.

Promise me no promises, So will I not promise you: Keep we both our liberties, Never false and never true: Let us hold the die uncast, Free to come as free to go: For I cannot know your past, And of mine what can you know?

Morning and eveningMaids heard the goblins cry:Come buy our orchard fruits,Come buy, come buy

Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand,Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you planned: Only remember me; you understandIt will be late to counsel then or pray.Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leaveA vestige of the thoughts that once I had,Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart; My silent heart, lie still and break: Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed For a dreams sake.

Where there are no God, we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts and no one to thank.

All others are outside myself;I lock my door and bar them outThe turmoil, tedium, gad-about.I lock my door upon myself,And bar them out; but who shall wallSelf from myself, most loathed of all?If I could once lay down myself,And start self-purged upon the raceThat all must run ! Death runs apace.

Then a hundred sad voices lifted a wail,And a hundred glad voices piped on the gale:Time is short, life is short, they took up the tale: Life is sweet, love is sweet, use to-day while you may;Love is sweet, and to-morrow may fail; Love is sweet, use to-day.

Give me the lowest place: not that I dareAsk for that lowest place, but Thou hast diedThat I might live and shareThy glory by Thy side.Give me the lowest place: of if for meThat lowest place too high, make one more lowWhere I may sit and seeMy God and love Thee so.

Were there no God, we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts, and no one thank.

For I have hedged me with a thorny hedge, I live alone, I look to die alone: Yet sometimes, when a wind sighs through the sedge, Ghosts of my buried years, and friends come back, My heart goes sighing after swallows flown On sometime summers unreturning track.

Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end.

A fool I was to sleep at noon, And wake when night is chilly Beneath the comfortless cold moon; A fool to pluck my rose too soon, A fool to snap my lily. My garden-plot I have not kept; Faded and all-forsaken,I weep as I have never wept: Oh it was summer when I slept, Its winter now I waken. Talk what you please of future spring And sun-warmd sweet to-orrow: Strippd bare of hope and everything, No more to laugh, no more to sing, I sit alone with sorrow.