Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
s Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
io Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
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A BIRTHDAY / 1463
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
All on the threshold, yet all short of life. 1856 1862
In an Artist's Studio1
One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans;
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness,
s A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel;?every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
io And she with true kind eyes looks back on him
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light: Not 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 dream. 1856 1896
A Birthday 5My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot;0My heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon0 sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me. slim branch tranquil io15Raise me a dais of silk and down; Hang it with vair? and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me. squirrel fur 1857 1862
1. According to Christina's brother William apparently to our brother's studio, and to his con- Michael, this poem focuses on the work of their stantly repeated heads of the lady whom he after- older brother, Dante Gabriel: 'The reference is wards married, Miss Siddal.'
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146 4 / CHRISTIN A ROSSETT I 510An Apple-Gathering I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple tree And wore them all that evening in my hair: Then in due season when I went to see I found no apples there. With dangling basket all along the grass As I had come I went the selfsame track: My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass So empty-handed back. Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by, Their heaped-up basket teazed me like a jeer; Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky, Their mother's home was near. 1520Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full, A stronger hand than hers helped it along; A voice talked with her thro' the shadows cool More sweet to me than song. Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth Than apples with their green leaves piled above? I counted rosiest apples on the earth Of far less worth than love. 25So once it was with me you stooped to talk Laughing and listening in this very lane: To think that by this way we used to walk We shall not walk again! I let my neighbours pass me, ones and twos And groups; the latest said the night grew chill, And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews Fell fast I loitered still. 1857 1862 5Winter: My Secret I tell my secret? No indeed, not I: Perhaps some day, who knows? But not today; it froze, and blows, and snows, And you're too curious: fie! You want to hear it? well: Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell. Or, after all, perhaps there's none: Suppose there is no secret after all, But only just my fun.
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UP-HILL / 1465
10is20253018575io151858
Today's a nipping day, a biting day;
In which one wants a shawl,
A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:
I cannot ope to every one who taps,
