Christina Rossetti quotes & passages

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 dayYou tell me of our future that you plann’d:Only remember me; you understandIt will be late to counsel then or pray.Yet if you should forget me for a whileAnd 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 smileThan that you should remember and be sad.

My heart is like a singing birdWhose nest is in a water’d shoot;My heart is like an apple-treeWhose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;My heart is like a rainbow shellThat paddles in a halcyon sea;My heart is gladder than all these,Because my love is come to me.

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?Yes, to the very end.Will the day's journey take the whole long day?From morn to night, my friend.

I loved you first: but afterwards your loveOutsoaring mine, sang such a loftier songAs drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.Which owes the other most? my love was long,And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;I loved and guessed at you, you construed meAnd loved me for what might or might not be—Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.For verily love knows not "mine" or "thine;"With separate "I" and "thou" free love has done,For one is both and both are one in love:Rich love knows nought of "thine that is not mine;"Both have the strength and both the length thereof,Both of us of the love which makes us one.

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tomeHas many sonnets: so here now shall beOne sonnet more, a love sonnet, from meTo her whose heart is my heart's quiet home,To my first Love, my Mother, on whose kneeI learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;Whose service is my special dignity,And she my loadstar while I go and come.And so because you love me, and becauseI love you, Mother, I have woven a wreathOf rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:In you not fourscore years can dim the flameOf love, whose blessed glow transcends the lawsOf time and change and mortal life and death.

Love me,—I love you,Love me, my baby;Sing it high, sing it low,Sing it as may be.Mother’s arms under you,Her eyes above you;Sing it high, sing it low,Love me,—I love you.

In the bleak mid-winterFrosty wind made moan,Earth stood hard as iron,Water like a stone;Snow had fallen, snow on snow,Snow on snow,In the bleak mid-winterLong ago.

What can I give Him,Poor as I am?If I were a shepherdI would bring a lamb,If I were a wise manI would do my part,—Yet what I can I give Him,Give my heart.

Whoso hears a chiming for Christmas at the nighest,Hears a sound like Angels chanting in their glee,Hears a sound like palm-boughs waving in the highest,Hears a sound like ripple of a crystal sea.

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 meWith 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 nightingaleSing on, as if in pain:And dreaming through the twilightThat doth not rise nor set,Haply I may remember,And haply may forget.