CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

And all the winds go sighing, for sweet things dying.

Hope is like a harebell trembling from its birth.

I might show facts as plain as day: but, since your eyes are blind, you'd say, 'Where? What?' and turn away.

For there is no friend like a sister in 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.

I dream of you to wake; would that I might Dream of you and not wake but slumber on.

Better by far you should forget and smile that you should remember and be sad.

Love shall be our token; love be yours and love be mine.

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.

Obedience is the fruit of faith.

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun.

Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I but when the trees bow down their heads, the wind is passing by.

Silence is more musical than any song.

My heart is like a singing bird.

What is the beginning? Love. What is the course. Love still. What the goal. The goal is love.

She cried, "Laura," up the garden, "Did you miss me? Come and kiss me. Never mind my bruises, Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices Squeezed from goblin fruits for you, Goblin pulp and goblin dew. Eat me, drink me, love me; Laura, make much of me; For your sake I have braved the glen And had to do with goblin merchant men.

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")

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.

Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me.

And may you happy live, And long us bless.

Consider The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:-- We are as they; Like them we fade away As doth a leaf.

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.