Christina Rossetti
English poet
Christina Georgina Rossetti (December 5, 1830 – December 29, 1894) was an English poet and the sister of artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Quotes
edit- 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
edit- (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
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- ↑ Selections from the Worlds Devotional classics.P.212. E.R.Scott and G.W.Gilmour, Funk and Wagnells, New York, London.