Christina Rossetti

Christina Georgina Rossetti (December 5, 1830 – December 29, 1894) was an English poet and the sister of artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Christina Rossetti, English poet (1848)

Quotes

• 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.
  • Up-Hill, st. 1 (1861).

• 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.
  • A Birthday, st. 1 (1861).

• The birthday of my life
  Is come, my love is come to me.
  • A Birthday, st. 2.

• 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.
  • Song, st. 1 (1862).

• Remember me when I am gone away,
  Gone far away into the silent land.
  • Remember, l. 1-2 (1862).

• Better by far you should forget and smile
  Than that you should remember and be sad.
  • Remember, l. 13-14.

• 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.
  • Goblin Market, st. 28 (1862).

• 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.
  • Song, st. 1 (1862).

• In the bleak mid-winter
  Frosty 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-winter
  Long ago.
  • Mid-Winter, st. 1 (1872).

• Who has seen the wind?
  Neither you nor I:
  But when the trees bow down their heads
  The wind is passing by.
  • Who Has Seen the Wind?, st. 2 (1872).

• Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over,
  Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past,
  Cold and white, out of sight of friend and of lover,
  Sleeping at last.
  • Sleeping at Last, st. 1 (1893) .

• Hope is like a harebell, trembling from its birth,
  Love is like a rose, the joy of all the earth,
  Faith is like a lily, lifted high and white,
  Love is like a lovely rose, the world’s delight.
  Harebells and sweet lilies show a thornless growth,
  But the rose with all its thorns excels them both.
  • Hope is like a Harebell; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• All earth’s full rivers can not fill
  The sea that drinking thirsteth still.
  • By the Sea; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919); Old and New, Volume 5 (1872), p. 169.

• One day in the country
  Is worth a month in town.
  • Summer; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Silence more musical than any song.
  • Sonnet. Rest; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Oh Lord, make thy law, I entreat thee, our delight.

Quotes about Christina Rossetti

• (Another story inspired by a previous story was "Pico Rico Mandorico," the story of two sisters who escape the power of a devil figure. Wasn't that influenced by Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"?) Yes, in fact my story is a prose rendition of the poem. I said so in the introduction to Sonatinas, the book in Spanish…I liked it so much I said, "I want to do my own version of this"... Writing is a lot like sewing: You bring pieces together and make a quilt. What brought me to Rossetti's story was a dirge, a little ditty called "Pico Rico Mandorico/Quién te dio tamaño pico?" ["Pico Rico, far and wide/leaves a mark where others hide"]. In this nursery rhyme there is a man dressed in black who comes to the house of a little girl. It's always on Sundays-that's very important. He has a very long nose and he spills everything on the table, so they have to cut off his nose. The man is really a devil, and he wants to steal the little girl and take her away with him. The Christina Rossetti story reminded me of the nursery rhyme, and I made a quilt of both.
  • Rosario Ferré interview in Backtalk: Women Writers Speak Out by Donna Marie Perry (1993)

External links

• Works by Christina Rossetti at Project Gutenberg]]