Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
A Better Resurrection
1I have no wit, no words, no tears;
2 My heart within me like a stone
3Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
4 Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
5I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
6 No everlasting hills I see;
7My life is in the falling leaf:
8 O Jesus, quicken me.
9My life is like a faded leaf,
10 My harvest dwindled to a husk:
11Truly my life is void and brief
12 And tedious in the barren dusk;
13My life is like a frozen thing,
14 No bud nor greenness can I see:
15Yet rise it shall--the sap of Spring;
16 O Jesus, rise in me.
17My life is like a broken bowl,
18 A broken bowl that cannot hold
19One drop of water for my soul
20 Or cordial in the searching cold;
21Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
22 Melt and remould it, till it be
23A royal cup for Him, my King:
24 O Jesus, drink of me.
Notes
5-6] Cf. Psalms 121: 1: "I lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come?"
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market and other Poems (Cambridge: Macmillan, 1862). end R673 G63 1862 Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto). Text from Christina Rossetti, Poems (1890).
First publication date:
1862
RPO poem editor: Margaret Frances (Sister St. Francis) Nims
RP edition: 3RP 3.303.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/14
Composition date:
June
1857
Rhyme: ababcdcd
Other poems by Christina Rossetti
