Christina Georgina Rossetti

Light Love

'Oh, sad thy lot before I came, But sadder when I go; My presence but a flash of flame, A transitory glow Between two barren wastes like snow. What wilt thou do when I am gone, Where wilt thou rest, my dear? For cold thy bed to rest upon, And cold the falling year Whose withered leaves are lost and sere. ' She hushed the baby at her breast, She rocked it on her knee: 'And I will rest my lonely rest, Warmed with the thought of thee, Rest lulled to rest by memory. ' She hushed the baby with her kiss, She hushed it with her breast: 'Is death so sadder much than this— Sure death that builds a nest For those who elsewhere cannot rest? ' 'Oh, sad thy note, my mateless dove, With tender nestling cold; But hast thou ne'er another love Left from the days of old, To build thy nest of silk and gold, To warm thy paleness to a blush When I am far away— To warm thy coldness to a flush, And turn thee back to May, And turn thy twilight back to day? ' She did not answer him again, But leaned her face aside, Weary with the pang of shame and pain, And sore with wounded pride: He knew his very soul had lied. She strained his baby in her arms, His baby to her heart: 'Even let it go, the love that harms: We twain will never part; Mine own, his own, how dear thou art. ' 'Now never teaze me, tender-eyed, Sigh-voiced,' he said in scorn: 'For nigh at hand there blooms a bride, My bride before the morn; Ripe-blooming she, as thou forlorn. Ripe-blooming she, my rose, my peach; She woos me day and night: I watch her tremble in my reach; She reddens, my delight, She ripens, reddens in my sight. ' 'And is she like a sunlit rose? Am I like withered leaves? Haste where thy spiced garden blows: But in bare Autumn eves Wilt thou have store of harvest sheaves? Thou leavest love, true love behind, To seek a love as true; Go, seek in haste: but wilt thou find? Change new again for new; Pluck up, enjoy—yea, trample too. 'Alas for her, poor faded rose, Alas for her her, like me, Cast down and trampled in the snows. ' 'Like thee? nay, not like thee: She leans, but from a guarded tree. Farewell, and dream as long ago, Before we ever met: Farewell; my swift-paced horse seems slow. ' She raised her eyes, not wet But hard, to Heaven: 'Does God forget? '