GOBLIN MARKET, THE PRINCE'S PROGRESS AND OTHER POEMS
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
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CONTENTS
GOBLIN MARKET, AND OTHER POEMS, 1862
GOBLIN MARKET
IN THE ROUND TOWER AT JHANSI, JUNE 8, 1857
DREAM LAND
AT HOME
A TRIAD
LOVE FROM THE NORTH
WINTER RAIN
COUSIN KATE
NOBLE SISTERS
SPRING
THE LAMBS OF GRASMERE, 1860
A BIRTHDAY
REMEMBER
AFTER DEATH
AN END
MY DREAM
SONG ('OH ROSES FOR THE FLUSH OF YOUTH')
THE HOUR AND THE GHOST
A SUMMER WISH
AN APPLE GATHERING
SONG ('TWO DOVES UPON THE SELFSAME BRANCH')
MAUDE CLARE
ECHO
MY SECRET
ANOTHER SPRING
A PEAL OF BELLS
FATA MORGANA
'NO, THANK YOU, JOHN'
MAY
A PAUSE OF THOUGHT
TWILIGHT CALM
WIFE TO HUSBAND
THREE SEASONS
MIRAGE
SHUT OUT
SOUND SLEEP
SONG ('SHE SAT AND SANG ALWAY')
SONG ('WHEN I AM DEAD, MY DEAREST')
DEAD BEFORE DEATH
BITTER FOR SWEET
SISTER MAUDE
REST
THE FIRST SPRING DAY
THE CONVENT THRESHOLD
UP-HILL
Devotional Pieces
'THE LOVE OF CHRIST WHICH PASSETH KNOWLEDGE'
'A BRUISED REED SHALL HE NOT BREAK'
A BETTER RESURRECTION
ADVENT
THE THREE ENEMIES
THE ONE CERTAINTY
CHRISTIAN AND JEW
SWEET DEATH
SYMBOLS
'CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD'
THE WORLD
A TESTIMONY
SLEEP AT SEA
FROM HOUSE TO HOME
OLD AND NEW YEAR DITTIES: NO. I
NO. II
NO. III
AMEN
THE PRINCE'S PROGRESS, AND OTHER POEMS, 1866
THE PRINCE'S PROGRESS
MAIDEN-SONG
JESSIE CAMERON
SPRING QUIET
THE POOR GHOST
A PORTRAIT
DREAM-LOVE
TWICE
SONGS IN A CORNFIELD
A YEAR'S WINDFALLS
THE QUEEN OF HEARTS
ONE DAY
A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW
LIGHT LOVE
A DREAM
A RING POSY
BEAUTY IS VAIN
LADY MAGGIE
WHAT WOULD I GIVE?
THE BOURNE
SUMMER
AUTUMN
THE GHOST'S PETITION
MEMORY
A ROYAL PRINCESS
SHALL I FORGET?
VANITY OF VANITIES
L. E. L.
LIFE AND DEATH
BIRD OR BEAST?
EVE
GROWN AND FLOWN
A FARM WALK
SOMEWHERE OR OTHER
A CHILL
CHILD'S TALK IN APRIL
GONE FOREVER
UNDER THE ROSE
Devotional Pieces
DESPISED AND REJECTED
LONG BARREN
IF ONLY
DOST THOU NOT CARE?
WEARY IN WELL-DOING
MARTYRS' SONG
AFTER THIS THE JUDGEMENT
GOOD FRIDAY
THE LOWEST PLACE
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 1848–1869
DEATH'S CHILL BETWEEN
HEART'S CHILL BETWEEN
REPINING
SIT DOWN IN THE LOWEST ROOM
MY FRIEND
LAST NIGHT
CONSIDER
HELEN GREY
'BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON'
SEASONS
MOTHER COUNTRY
A SMILE AND A SIGH
DEAD HOPE
AUTUMN VIOLETS
'THEY DESIRE A BETTER COUNTRY'
THE OFFERING OF THE NEW LAW
CONFERENCE BETWEEN CHRIST, THE SAINTS, AND THE SOUL
'COME UNTO ME'
'JESUS, DO I LOVE THEE?'
'I KNOW YOU NOT'
'BEFORE THE PALING OF THE STARS'
EASTER EVEN
PARADISE: IN A DREAM
WITHIN THE VEIL
PARADISE: IN A SYMBOL
AMOR MUNDI
'WHO SHALL DELIVER ME?'
IF
TWILIGHT NIGHT
GOBLIN MARKET, AND OTHER POEMS, 1862
GOBLIN MARKET
MORNING and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
All ripe together
In summer weather,—
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.'
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger tips.
'Lie close,' Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
'We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?'
'Come buy,' call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.
'Oh,' cried Lizzie, 'Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men.'
Lizzie covered up her eyes,
Covered close lest they should look;
Laura reared her glossy head,
And whispered like the restless brook:
'Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen tramp little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds weigh
t.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes.'
'No,' said Lizzie: 'No, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us.'
She thrust a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One had a cat's face,
One whisked a tail,
One tramped at a rat's pace,
One crawled like a snail,
One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.
Laura stretched her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
Like a vessel at the launch
When its last restraint is gone.
Backwards up the mossy glen
Turned and trooped the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
'Come buy, come buy.'
When they reached where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other,
Brother with queer brother;
Signalling each other,
Brother with sly brother.
One set his basket down,
One reared his plate;
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town);
One heaved the golden weight
Of dish and fruit to offer her:
'Come buy, come buy,' was still their cry.
Laura stared but did not stir,
Longed but had no money:
The whisk-tailed merchant bade her taste
In tones as smooth as honey,
The cat-faced purr'd,
The rat-paced spoke a word
Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;
One parrot-voiced and jolly
Cried 'Pretty Goblin' still for 'Pretty Polly;'—
One whistled like a bird.
But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:
'Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather.'
'You have much gold upon your head,'
They answered all together:
'Buy from us with a golden curl.'
She clipped a precious golden lock,
She dropped a tear more rare than pearl,
Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flowed that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?
She sucked and sucked and sucked the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She sucked until her lips were sore;
Then flung the emptied rinds away
But gathered up one kernel stone,
And knew not was it night or day
As she turned home alone.
Lizzie met her at the gate
Full of wise upbraidings:
'Dear, you should not stay so late,
Twilight is not good for maidens;
Should not loiter in the glen
In the haunts of goblin men.
Do you not remember Jeanie,
How she met them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and many,
Ate their fruits and wore their flowers
Plucked from bowers
Where summer ripens at all hours?
But ever in the noonlight
She pined and pined away;
Sought them by night and day,
Found them no more but dwindled and grew grey;
Then fell with the first snow,
While to this day no grass will grow
Where she lies low:
I planted daisies there a year ago
That never blow.
You should not loiter so.'
'Nay, hush,' said Laura:
'Nay, hush, my sister:
I ate and ate my fill,
Yet my mouth waters still;
Tomorrow night I will
Buy more:' and kissed her:
'Have done with sorrow;
I'll bring you plums tomorrow
Fresh on their mother twigs,
Cherries worth getting;
You cannot think what figs
My teeth have met in,
What melons icy-cold
Piled on a dish of gold
Too huge for me to hold,
What peaches with a velvet nap,
Pellucid grapes without one seed:
Odorous indeed must be the mead
Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink
With lilies at the brink,
And sugar-sweet their sap.'
Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other's wings,
They lay down in their curtained bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem,
Like two flakes of new-fall'n snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipped with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars gazed in at them,
Lumbering owls forbore to fly,
Not a bat flapped to and fro
Round their nest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Locked together in one nest.
Early in the morning
When the first cock crowed his warning,
Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,
Laura rose with Lizzie:
Fetched in honey, milked the cows,
Aired and set to rights the house,
Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,
Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,
Next churned butter, whipped up cream,
Fed their poultry, sat and sewed;
Talked as modest maidens should:
Lizzie with an open heart,
Laura in an absent dream,
One content, one sick in part;
One warbling for the mere bright day's delight,
One longing for the night.
At length slow evening came:
They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;
Lizzie most placid in her look,
Laura most like a leaping flame.
They drew the gurgling water from its deep;
Lizzie plucked purple and rich golden flags,
Then turning homewards said: 'The sunset flushes
Those furthest loftiest crags;
Come, Laura, not another maiden lags,
No wilful squirrel wags,
The beasts and birds are fast asleep.'
But Laura loitered still among the rushes
And said the bank was steep.
And said the hour was early still,
The dew not fall'n, the wind not chill:
Listening ever, but not catching
The customary cry,
'Come buy, come buy,'
With its iterated jingle
Of sugar-baited words:
Not for all her watching
Once discerning even one goblin
Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;
Let alone the herds
That us
ed to tramp along the glen,
In groups or single,
Of brisk fruit-merchant men.
Till Lizzie urged, 'O Laura, come;
I hear the fruit-call but I dare not look:
You should not loiter longer at this brook:
Come with me home.
The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,
Each glowworm winks her spark,
Let us get home before the night grows dark:
For clouds may gather
Though this is summer weather,
Put out the lights and drench us through;
Then if we lost our way what should we do?'
Laura turned cold as stone
To find her sister heard that cry alone,
That goblin cry,
'Come buy our fruits, come buy.'
Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?
Must she no more such succous pasture find,
Gone deaf and blind?
Her tree of life drooped from the root:
She said not one word in her heart's sore ache;
But peering thro' the dimness, nought discerning,
Trudged home, her pitcher dripping all the way;
So crept to bed, and lay
Silent till Lizzie slept;
Then sat up in a passionate yearning,
And gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept
As if her heart would break.
Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
'Come buy, come buy;'—
She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the noon waxed bright
Her hair grew thin and grey;
She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn
To swift decay and burn
Her fire away.
One day remembering her kernel-stone
She set it by a wall that faced the south;
Dewed it with tears, hoped for a root,
Watched for a waxing shoot,
But there came none;
It never saw the sun,
It never felt the trickling moisture run:
While with sunk eyes and faded mouth
She dreamed of melons, as a traveller sees
False waves in desert drouth
With shade of leaf-crowned trees,
And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.
She no more swept the house,
Tended the fowls or cows,
Fetched honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,
Brought water from the brook:
But sat down listless in the chimney-nook
And would not eat.
Tender Lizzie could not bear
To watch her sister's cankerous care
Yet not to share.
She night and morning
Caught the goblins' cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:'—