Christina Rossetti Quotations

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

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.

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.

Hope is like a harebell trembling from its birth.

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

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

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

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

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

What can I give him,Poor as I am?If I were a shepherd,I would bring a lamb;If I were a wise man,I would do my part;Yet what I can I give himGive my heart.

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

What are heavy? sea-sand and sorrow. What are brief? today and tomorrow. What are frail? spring blossoms and youth. What are deep? the ocean and truth.

Open wide the windows of our spirits and fill us full of light; open wide the door of our hearts, that we may receive and entertain Thee with all our powers of adoration.

I have no wit, no words, no tears; My heart within me like a stone Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears; Look right, look left, I dwell alone; I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief No everlasting hills I see; My life is in the falling leaf: O Jesus, quicken me.

My heart is like a singing bird.

My heart is breaking for a little love

Flowers preach to us if we will hear.

Choose love not in the shallows but in the deep.

What can I give Him, Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb. If I were a Wise Man I would do my part. Yet what can I give Him? I give Him my heart.

O passing angel, speed me with a song, a melody of heaven to reach my heart and rouse me to the race and make me strong.

My life is like a faded leaf, My harvest dwindled to a husk: Truly my life is void and brief And tedious in the barren dusk; My life is like a frozen thing, No bud nor greenness can I see: Yet rise it shall - the sap of Spring; O Jesus, rise in me.

Tread softly! All the earth is holy ground.

Silence is more musical than any song.

Hurt no living thing: Ladybird, nor butterfly, Nor moth with dusty wing.

Were there no God, we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts, and no one to thank.

Love loves for ever, And finds a sort of joy in pain, And gives with nought to take again, And loves too well to end in vain: Is the gain small then? Love laughs at "never", Outlives our life, exceeds the span Appointed to mere mortal man: All which love is and does and can Is all in all then.

Love is like a rose, the joy of all the earth.

Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, Love Divine; Love was born at Christmas; Star and angels gave the sign.

I wonder if the sap is stirring yet, If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate, If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun And crocus fires are kindling one by one: Sing robin, sing: I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.

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. I shall not see the shadows, I shall not feel the rain; I shall not hear the nightingale Sing on as if in pain: And dreaming through the twilight That doth not rise nor set, Haply I may remember, And haply I may forget.

We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?

The violets whisper from the shade Which their own leaves have made: Men scent our fragrance on the air, Yet take no heed Of humble lessons we would read.

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

Be the green grass above me, with showers and dewdrops wet; and if thou wilt, remember, and if thou wilt, forget.

Where innocent bright-eyes daisies are With blades of grass between, Each daisy stands up like a star Out of a sky of green.

Christmas hath a darkness; Brighter than the blazing noon; Christmas hath a chillness Warmer than the heat of June, Christmas hath a beauty Lovelier than the world can show: For Christmas bringeth Jesus, Brought for us so low

The loves that meet in Paradise shall cast out fear, And Paradise hath room for you and me and all.

Rest, rest at the heart's core . . . till joy shall overtake.

Good deeds are many, but good lives are few ...

Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.

As a tree my sin stands To darken all lands; Death is the fruit it bore.

Observe this dew-drenched rose of Tyrian gardens A rose today. But you will ask in vain Tomorrow what it is; and yesterday It was the dust, the sunshine, and the rains.

The lilies say: Behold how we Preach without words of purity.

January cold and desolate; February dripping wet; March wind ranges; April changes; Birds sing in tune To flowers of May, And sunny June Brings longest day; In scorched July The storm-clouds fly, Lightning-torn; August bears corn, September fruit; In rough October Earth must disrobe her; Stars fall and shoot In keen November; And night is long And cold is strong In bleak December.

For one man is my world of all the men this wide world holds; O love, my world is you.

A pin has a head, but has no hair

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...

For I am bound with fleshly bands, Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope; I strain my heart, I stretch my hands, And catch at hope.

The rose saith in the dewy morn, I am most fair; Yet all my loveliness is born Upon a thorn.

All earth's full rivers can not fillThe sea that drinking thirsteth still.

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.

Christmas hath a beauty ... lovelier than the world can show.

I watched a rose-bud very long Brought on by dew and sun and shower, Waiting to see the perfect flower: Then when I thought it should be strong It opened at the matin hour And fell at even-song.

It's surely summer. for there's a swallow: Come one swallow, his mate will follow, The bird race quicken and wheel and thicken.

Why does the sea moan evermore? Shut out from heaven it makes its moan, It frets against the boundary shore; All earth's full rivers cannot fill The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.

There is no time like Spring When life's alive in everything, Before new nestlings sing, Before cleft swallows speed their journey back Along the trackless track.

Heaven is the presence of God.

Come to me in the silence of the night, Come to me in the speaking silence of a dream. Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright as sunlight on a stream. Come back in tears, O memory, hope, love of finished years.

A man is ever apt to contemplate himself out of all proportion to his surroundings.

Obedience is the fruit of faith.

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

Gone were but the Winter, Come were but the Spring, I would go to a covert Where the birds sing; Where in the whitethorn Singeth a thrush, And a robin sings In the holly-bush. Full of fresh scents Are the budding boughs Arching high over A cool green house: Full of sweet scents, And whispering air Which sayeth softly: We spread no snare; Here dwell in safety, Here dwell alone, With a clear stream And a mossy stone. Here the sun shineth Most shadily; Here is heard an echo Of the far sea, Though far off it be.

Spring is when life's alive in everything.

This life is but the passage of a day, This life is but a pang and all is over; But in the life to come which fades not away Every love shall abide and every lover.

Hope dead lives nevermore, No, not in heaven.

Spring bursts today, For love is risen and all the earth's at play.

Born in a stable, Cradled in a manger, In the world His hands have made, Born a stranger.

I lock my door upon myself, And bar them out; but who shall wall Self from myself, most loathed of all?

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.

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")

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live My very life again though cold in death; Come back to me in dreams, that I may give Pulse for pulse, breath for breath: Speak low, lean low, As long ago, my love, how long ago

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart; My silent heart, lie still and break: Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed For a dream's sake.

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.

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.

Hope is like a hairball trembling from its birth...

Not as she is, but as she fills his dream

For there is no friend like a sister in calm or stormy weather.

Oh that it were with me As with the flower; Blooming on its own tree For butterfly and bee Its summer morns: That I might bloom mine hour A rose in spite of thorns. Oh that my work were done As birds' that soar Rejoicing in the sun: That when my time is run And daylight too, I so might rest once more Cool with refreshing dew.

To her whose heart is my heart's quiet home, To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome.

I wish I could remember the first day, First hour, first moment of your meeting me; If bright or dim the season it might be; Summer or winter for aught I can say. So, unrecorded did it slip away, So blind was i to see and to forsee, So dull to mark the budding of my tree That would not blossom, yet, for many a May.

I believe because I am told to believe ... My faith is faith; it is not evolved out of argumentation, nor does it seek the aid of that.

To me it seems our duty towards the Bible is to obey its teaching in faith. I do not think we are bound to understand or account for all its utterances.

What is green? The grass is green, With small flowers between. What is violet? Clouds are violet In the summer twilight. What is orange? Why, an orange, Just an orange!

What is pink? A rose is pink By the fountain's brink.

And sometimes I remember days of old When fellowship seemed not so far to seek, And all the world and I seemed much less cold, And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold, And hope felt strong, and life itself not weak.

Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust March with its peck of dust, Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers, Nor even May, whose flowers One frost may wither thro' the sunless hours.

Faith is like a lily, lifted high and white.

O Lord, who art our guide even unto death, grant us, I pray Thee, grace to follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest. In little daily duties to which Thou callest us, bow down our wills to simple obedience.

I have a room whereinto no one enters Save I myself alone: There sits a blessed memory on a throne, There my life centres.

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 day You tell me of our future that you planned: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterward remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.

In the bleak midwinter 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 midwinter, Long ago.

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.

The downhill path is easy, but there's no turning back....

The Bourne Underneath the growing grass, Underneath the living flowers, Deeper than the sound of showers: There we shall not count the hours By the shadows as they pass. Youth and health will be but vain, Beauty reckoned of no worth: There a very little girth Can hold round what once the earth Seemed too narrow to contain.

And may you happy live, And long us bless.

O Lord, I cannot plead my love of Thee: I plead Thy love of me: - the shallow conduit hails the unfathomed sea.

Obedience is the fruit of faith; patience is the early blossom on the tree of faith.