Consider*

Consider 

The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:--

We are as they;

Like them we fade away,

As doth a leaf.

Consider 

The sparrows of the air of small account:

Our God doth view

Whether they fall or mount**--

He guards us, too.

Consider 

The lilies that do neither toil nor spin,

Yet are most fair:--

What profits all this care

And all this coil***?

Consider 

The birds that have no barns nor harvest-weeks;

God gives them food:--

Much more our Father seeks

To do us good.   --Christina Rossetti, 1866  

*"consider the lilies and the birds [ravens]"; Luke 12:22-31, Matthew 6:25-33

**mount the wing, take flight

***mortal coil: this fleshly, physical life

Bird in Lilies Tug Hill Tomorrow Land Trust

An Easter Carol

               

                Spring bursts to-day,
For Christ is risen and all the earth's at play.

                Flash forth, thou Sun,
The rain is over and gone, its work is done.

                Winter is past,
Sweet Spring is come at last, is come at last.

                Bud, Fig and Vine,
Bud, Olive, fat with fruit and oil and wine*.

                Break forth this morn
In roses, thou but yesterday a Thorn**.

                Uplift thy head,
O pure white Lily through the Winter dead.

                Beside your dams
Leap and rejoice, you merry-making Lambs.

                All Herds and Flocks
Rejoice, all Beasts of thickets and of rocks.

                Sing, Creatures, sing,
Angels and Men and Birds and everything.

                All notes of Doves
Fill all our world: this is the time of loves.    

                                                  -Christina G. Rossetti (1830-1894)

  

*Habakkuk chapter 3
**Compares the flowerless rose, all thorns "just yesterday", to the contrast between Good Friday, when the Lord died, to the blossom of His resurrection on Easter.

Before the Paling of the Stars

 

Before the paling of the stars,
Before the winter morn,
Before the earliest cock crow,
Jesus Christ was born:
Born in a stable,
Cradled in a manger,
In the world his hands had made
Born a stranger.

Priest and king lay fast asleep
In Jerusalem;
Young and old lay fast asleep
In crowded Bethlehem;
Saint and angel, ox and ass,
Kept a watch together
Before the Christmas daybreak
In the winter weather.

Jesus on his mother’s breast
In the stable cold,
Spotless lamb of God was He,
Shepherd of the fold:
Let us kneel with Mary maid,
With Joseph laudatory*,
With saint and angel, ox and ass,
To hail the King of Glory.
--Christina Rosetti, 1912

*In the original poem, "bent and hoary", with the idea that Joseph was older, and this was his second marriage, coming out of the extra-Biblical idea that Mary was always a Virgin and never had biological children. Christians who hold this view, namely Roman Catholics and some Anglicans, interpret New Testament references of Jesus' brothers and sisters as being half-sisters from a possible 1st marriage of Joseph.  There is no actual Biblical data to support this.  Rosetti was a "High Church Anglican"

Autumn Violets

 

Keep love for youth, and violets for the spring:
Or if these bloom when worn-out autumn grieves,
Let them lie hid in double shade of leaves,
Their own, and others dropped down withering;
For violets suit when home birds build and sing,
Not when the outbound bird a passage cleaves;
Not with dry stubble of mown harvest sheaves,
But when the green world buds to blossoming.
Keep violets for the spring, and love for youth,
Love that should dwell with beauty, mirth, and hope:
Or if a later sadder love be born,
Let this not look for grace beyond its scope,
But give itself, nor plead for answering truth—
A grateful Ruth tho' gleaning scanty corn*. 

  --Christina Rosetti; Macmillan's Magazine; NOV, 1868 

*Book of Ruth.  Landowners were required not to glean (gather grain crops) overly zealously; they were supposed to leave something behind for the poor.  Ruth, who moved from her home in Moab to Israel with her Israelite mother-in-law Naomi (after both were widowed), gleaned to support both of them.  The landowner eventually fell in love with her and married her; she became an ancestress of Christ.

Good Friday

(Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday arrive on the same day this year. This poem is an early preview for both.  It deals with the "heart" in the most important way.  It is a nice Lenten reflection, of course.)

Am I a stone, and not a sheep*,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter, weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved**;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.**

Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses***, turn and look once more
And smite a rock*.   --Christina Rossetti, 1866

*She's saying her heart is like a stone because she's not moved to tears over Christ's crucifixion like a "sheep", a "true follower" (John 10) would be.  She picks up the idea again at the end, asking Christ to break her heart of stone.

**The women at the cross, the repentant Peter, even one of the thieves crucified with Jesus were moved to sorrow.  Even the Sun was somehow darkened from about noon to 3 pm, at a time when it could NOT have been a solar eclipse (full Moon).  Nature itself expresses sadness, but the poetess indicates she feels strangely unmoved.

***Deuteronomy 18:  Christ was prophesied as the New Prophet, greater than Moses.  He is also the Shepherd (John 10; Psalm 23).   Moses broke open a rock to get water out of it (Numbers 20), but Christ does a greater thing by breaking open hearts of stone.

Song (Two Doves Upon The Selfsame Branch)

Two doves upon the selfsame branch,
  Two lilies on a single stem,
Two butterflies upon one flower:--
  O happy they who look on them.

Who look upon them hand in hand
  Flushed in the rosy summer light;
Who look upon them hand in hand
  And never give a thought to night.

--- Christina Rossetti  (1830 - 1894)  

(Although this poem is not specifically Christian, the poetess was)

Autumn

Fade tender lily,                      
Fade O crimson rose,
Fade every flower
Sweetest flower that blows.

Go chilly Autumn,
Come O Winter cold;
Let the green things die away
Into common mould.

Birth follows hard on death,
Life on withering:
Hasten, we shall come the sooner
Back to pleasant Spring.
---Christina Rossetti

May

I cannot tell you how it was, 

But this I know: it came to pass 

Upon a bright and sunny day 

When May was young; ah, pleasant May! 

As yet the poppies were not born 

Between the blades of tender corn;

The last egg had not hatched as yet,

Nor any bird foregone its mate*. 

I cannot tell you what it was, 

But this I know: it did but pass. 

It passed away with sunny May, 

Like all sweet things it passed away, 

And left me old, and cold, and gray. 

---Christina Rossetti, (1830-1894) 

detail from a tablecloth sold by Vermont Country Store

*in the world of birds, many males leave their mates after the babies are old enough to fly away

Rest

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes; Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth; Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs. She hath no questions, she hath no replies, Hushed in and curtained with a blessed dearth Of all that irked her from the hour of birth; With stillness that is almost Paradise. Darkness more clear than noon-day holdeth her, Silence more musical than any song; Even her very heart has ceased to stir: Until the morning of Eternity Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be; And when she wakes she will not think it long. --Christina Rossetti From Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862)

A Better Resurrection

[an excerpt; for the end of Lent & Easter] 

I have no wit, no words, no tears; 

My heart within me like a stone 

Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears; 

Look right, look left, I dwell alone; 

I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief 

No everlasting hills I see; 

My life is in the falling leaf: 

O Jesus, quicken me. 

My life is like a faded leaf, 

My harvest dwindled to a husk: 

Truly my life is void and brief 

And tedious in the barren dusk; 

My life is like a frozen thing, 

No bud nor greenness can I see: 

Yet rise it shall--the sap of Spring; 

O Jesus, rise in me. ---Christina Rossetti

"The Love of Christ Which Passeth Knowledge"

[A useful reflection for Lent] 

I bore with thee long weary days and nights, 

Through many pangs of heart, through many tears; 

I bore with thee, thy hardness, coldness, slights, 

For three and thirty years*. 

Who else had dared for thee what I have dared? 

I plunged the depth most deep from bliss above; 

I not My flesh, I not My spirit spared: 

Give thou Me love for love. 

For thee I thirsted in the daily drouth, 

For thee I trembled in the nightly frost: 

Much sweeter thou than honey to My mouth: 

Why wilt thou still be lost? 

I bore thee on My shoulders and rejoiced: 

Men only marked upon My shoulders borne 

The branding cross; and shouted hungry-voiced, 

Or wagged their heads in scorn. ---Christina Rossetti

*It's not clear that Jesus lived exactly 33 years on this earth. His public ministry began when he was "about" 30 years old and lasted three years. 

Epiphany

'Lord Babe, if Thou art He We sought for patiently, 

Where is Thy court? 

Hither may prophecy and star resort; 

Men heed not their report.' – 

'Bow down and worship, righteous man: 

This Infant of a span 

Is He man sought for since the world began!' – 

'Then, Lord, accept my gold, too base a thing 

For Thee, of all kings King.' – 

'Lord Babe, despite Thy youth 

I hold Thee of a truth 

Both Good and Great: 

But wherefore dost Thou keep so mean a state, 

Low-lying desolate?' – 

'Bow down and worship, righteous seer: 

The Lord our God is here 

Approachable, Who bids us all draw near.' – 

'Wherefore to Thee I offer frankincense, 

Thou Sole Omnipotence.' – 

'But I have only brought Myrrh; no wise afterthought Instructed me 

To gather pearls or gems, or choice to see 

Coral or ivory.' – 

'Not least thine offering proves thee wise: 

For myrrh means sacrifice, 

And He that lives, this Same is He that dies.' – 

'Then here is myrrh: alas, yea woe is me 

That myrrh befitteth Thee.' – 

Myrrh, frankincense, and gold: 

And lo from wintry fold 

Good-will doth bring A Lamb, the innocent likeness of this King Whom stars and seraphs sing: 

And lo the bird of love, a Dove, 

Flutters and coos above: 

And Dove and Lamb and Babe agree in love: – 

Come all mankind, come all creation hither,

Come, worship Christ together. --Christina Rosetti; Before 1886

In the Bleak Midwinter

In the bleak midwinter 

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 midwinter, 

Long ago. 

Our God, heaven cannot hold him, 

Nor earth sustain; 

Heaven and earth shall flee away 

When he comes to reign; 

In the bleak midwinter 

A stable place sufficed 

The Lord God incarnate, 

Jesus Christ. 

Enough for him, whom Cherubim 

Worship night and day 

A breast full of milk 

And a manger full of hay. 

Enough for him, whom angels 

Fall down before, 

The ox and ass and camel which adore. What can I give him, 

Poor as I am? 

If I were a shepherd 

I would bring a lamb, 

If I were a wise man 

I would do my part, 

Yet what I can I give Him — 

Give my heart. ---Christina Rossetti, circa 1872