Quotes from Christina Rossetti

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

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

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

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.

One day in the country Is worth a month in town

When I Am Dead, My Dearest 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 may forget.

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.

Ah me, but where are now the songs I sang When life was sweet because you call'd them sweet?

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.

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

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

Choose love not in the shallows but in the deep.

Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end.

My heart is like a singing bird.

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

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

All things that pass Are wisdom's looking-glass.

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.

My heart is breaking for a little love

Promise me no promises, So will I not promise you: Keep we both our liberties, Never false and never true: Let us hold the die uncast, Free to come as free to go: For I cannot know your past, And of mine what can you know?

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.

He feeds upon her face by day and night, 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.

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")

I have no heart?--Perhaps I have not; But then you're mad to take offence That I don't give you what I have not got: Use your own common sense.