Christina Rossetti, English poet (1848)

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

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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Remember me when I am gone away,
    Gone far away into the silent land.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Who has seen the wind?
    Neither you nor I:
    But when the trees bow down their heads
    The wind is passing by.
  • 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.
  • 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)

]]

  1. ↑ Selections from the Worlds Devotional classics.P.212. E.R.Scott and G.W.Gilmour, Funk and Wagnells, New York, London.
This article is issued from Wikiquote. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.