Christina Rossetti Quotes - Page 4

This life is but the passage of a day, This life is but a pang and all is over; But in the life to come which fades not away Every love shall abide and every lover.

She gave up beauty in her tender youth, gave all her hope and joy and pleasant ways; she covered up her eyes lest they should gaze on vanity, and chose the bitter truth.

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

Hope dead lives nevermore, No, not in heaven.

Hope is like a hairball trembling from its birth.

To me it seems our duty towards the Bible is to obey its teaching in faith. I do not think we are bound to understand or account for all its utterances.

O Lord, I cannot plead my love of Thee: I plead Thy love of me: - the shallow conduit hails the unfathomed sea.

The lilies say: Behold how we Preach without words of purity.

Where are the songs I used to know, Where are the notes I used to sing? I have forgotten everything I used to know so long ago. ("The Key-Note")

I believe because I am told to believe ... My faith is faith; it is not evolved out of argumentation, nor does it seek the aid of that.

As a tree my sin stands To darken all lands; Death is the fruit it bore.

A pin has a head, but has no hair

Oh roses for the flush of youth, And laurel for the perfect prime; But pluck an ivy branch for me Grown old before my time.

Observe this dew-drenched rose of Tyrian gardens A rose today. But you will ask in vain Tomorrow what it is; and yesterday It was the dust, the sunshine, and the rains.

Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke, I love, as you would have me, God the most; Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost, Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look Unready to forego what I forsook; This say I, having counted up the cost, This, tho' I be the feeblest of God's host, The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook. Yet while I love my God the most, I deem That I can never love you overmuch; I love Him more, so let me love you too; Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such I cannot love you if I love not Him. I cannot love Him if I love not you.

Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.

My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water'd shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my love is come to me. Raise me a daïs of silk and down; Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me.

The city mouse lives in a house, The garden mouse lives in a bower

When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree: Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet: And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget. I shall not see the shadows, I shall not feel the rain; I shall not hear the nightingale Sing on as if in pain: And dreaming through the twilight That doth not rise nor set, Haply I may remember, And haply I may forget.

I wish I could remember the first day, First hour, first moment of your meeting me; If bright or dim the season it might be; Summer or winter for aught I can say. So, unrecorded did it slip away, So blind was i to see and to forsee, So dull to mark the budding of my tree That would not blossom, yet, for many a May.

Why does the sea moan evermore? Shut out from heaven it makes its moan, It frets against the boundary shore; All earth's full rivers cannot fill The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live My very life again though cold in death; Come back to me in dreams, that I may give Pulse for pulse, breath for breath: Speak low, lean low, As long ago, my love, how long ago

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.

All earth's full rivers can not fillThe sea that drinking thirsteth still.

What is pink? A rose is pink By the fountain's brink.