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Christina Rossetti: Poems

Devotional Pieces: Christian And Jew


A DIALOGUE


'Oh happy happy land!

Angels like rushes stand

About the wells of light.'--

'Alas, I have not eyes for this fair sight:

Hold fast my hand.'--


'As in a soft wind, they

Bend all one blessed way,

Each bowed in his own glory, star with star.'--

'I cannot see so far,

Here shadows are.'-- 10


'White-winged the cherubim,

Yet whiter seraphim,

Glow white with intense fire of love.'--

'Mine eyes are dim:

I look in vain above,

And miss their hymn.'--


'Angels, Archangels cry

One to other ceaselessly

(I hear them sing)

One "Holy, Holy, Holy" to their King.'-- 20

'I do not hear them, I.'--


'At one side Paradise

Is curtained from the rest,

Made green for wearied eyes;

Much softer than the breast

Of mother-dove clad in a rainbow's dyes.


'All precious souls are there

Most safe, elect by grace,

All tears are wiped for ever from their face:

Untired in prayer 30

They wait and praise

Hidden for a little space.


'Boughs of the Living Vine

They spread in summer shine

Green leaf with leaf:

Sap of the Royal Vine it stirs like wine

In all both less and chief.


'Sing to the Lord,

All spirits of all flesh, sing;

For He hath not abhorred 40

Our low estate nor scorn'd our offering:

Shout to our King.'--


'But Zion said:

My Lord forgetteth me.

Lo, she hath made her bed

In dust; forsaken weepeth she

Where alien rivers swell the sea.


'She laid her body as the ground,

Her tender body as the ground to those

Who passed; her harpstrings cannot sound 50

In a strange land; discrowned

She sits, and drunk with woes.'--


'O drunken not with wine,

Whose sins and sorrows have fulfilled the sum,--

Be not afraid, arise, be no more dumb;

Arise, shine,

For thy light is come.'--


'Can these bones live?'--

'God knows:

The prophet saw such clothed with flesh and skin;

A wind blew on them and life entered in; 60

They shook and rose.

Hasten the time, O Lord, blot out their sin,

Let life begin.'