E-Text

Christina Rossetti: Poems

Within The Veil


(Lyra Eucharistica, second edition, 1865.)


She holds a lily in her hand,

Where long ranks of Angels stand,

A silver lily for her wand.


All her hair falls sweeping down;

Her hair that is a golden brown,

A crown beneath her golden crown.


Blooms a rose-bush at her knee,

Good to smell and good to see:

It bears a rose for her, for me;


Her rose a blossom richly grown, 10

My rose a bud not fully blown,

But sure one day to be mine own.