Rossetti Quotes

notable quotes that fit with analysis and context

Song: “sing no…

sad songs for me, plant thou no roses at my head nor shady cypress tree”

Song: I shall not see…

the shadows I shall not feel the pain I shall not hear the nightingale

Song: And if thou wilt…

remember and if thou wilt, forget

Remember:: Gone far…

away into the silent land

Remember: When you can no …

longer hold me by the hand

Remember: You tell me of our…

future that you planned

Remember: For if the darkness and corruption…

leave a vestige of the thoughts I once had

Remember: Better by far…

you should forget and smile than you should remember and be sad

From the Antique: It’s a weary…

life she said

From the Antique; I wish…

and I wish I were a man

From the Antique : Not a body…

and not a soul

From the Antique : Still the…

world would wag on the same

From the Antique: Blossoms..

bloom as in days of old cherries ripen and wild bees hum

Echo : Come to me with soft rounded cheeks…

and eyes as bright as sunlight on a stream

Echo : O memory, hope…

love of finished years

Echo : Oh dream how sweet…

too sweet, too bittersweet

Echo : In Paradise, where sould brimfull of love..

abide and meet, where longing eyes watch the slow door

Echo : Come to me in dreams that I may…

live my very life again tho cold in death

Echo : pulse for pulse…

breath for breath, speak low, lean low

Shut Out : My garden,mine…

it had been mine and it was lost

Shut Out : A shadowless spirit…

blank and unchanging like the grave

Shut Out : The door was shut…

its iron bars…mortar and stone build a wall

Shut Out : violet bed is budding near…lark has made its best…

and dear they are but not so dear and good they are but not the best

A Birthday : watered shoot…

….appled tree…thickest fruit

A Birthday: Raise me in…

a dais of silk and down

A Birthday : purple dyes…pomegranates…

…peacocks…fleur-de-lis

Maude Clare : Out of the church…

she followed them with lofty step and mein

Maude Clare : His bride was like a village maid…

Maude Clare was like a queen

Maude Clare : Your father thirty years ago…

had just your story to tell. But he was not so pale as you nor I so pale as Nell

Maude Clare My lord was pale with inward strife…

gazed long on pale Maude Clare or ever he kissed the bride

Maude Clare : have brought my gift to bless the hearth…

to bless the board to bless the marriage bed

Maude Clare : here’s my half of the golden chain…

you wore around your neck the day we waded ankle-deep for lillies in the beck

Maude Clare: The lillies are…

budding now

Maude Clare : He strove to match her scorn with scorn….

he faltered in his place and hid his face

Maude Clare : were it fruit the bloom gone….

or were it were flowers the dew…take my share of a fickle heart

Maude Clare : For he’s my lord for better or for worse…

and him I love Maude Clare

Maude Clare: you’re taller by the head more wise…

and much more fair I’ll love him till he loves me best, me best of all Maude Clare

Winter: My Secret: Only, my secret’s…

mine, and I won’t tell

Winter: My Secret : Suppose there is no secret after all…

but only just my fun

Winter: My Secret : one wants a shawl, a veil a cloak and other wraps…

…let the draughts come…nipping and clipping through my wraps and all

Winter: My Secret: And if golden fruit is ripening to excess…

and the warm wind is neither still nor loud…perhaps my secret I may say or you may guess

Up-Hill : Does the road wind up-hill…

all the way? Yes to the very end.

Up-Hill: But is there for the night a resting-place…

…may not the darkness hide it from my face? You cannot miss that inn

Up-Hill : Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?

Those who have gone before…they will not keep you waiting at that door

Up-Hill : Will there be beds for…

all those who seek? Yes beds for all who come

No, thank you John : I never said I loved you John…

…You know I never loved you John

No, thank you John : and wax a weariness to…

think upon with always ‘do’ and ‘pray’?

No, thank you John : No fault of mine…

made me your toast

No, thank you John : I dare say Meg or Moll…

would take pity on you if you’d ask

No, thank you John : I have no heart?

Perhaps I have not

No, thank you John : I’d rather answer ‘no’…

to fifty Johns than answer ‘yes’ to you

No, thank you John : let’s mar our pleasant days no more…

song-birds of passage, days of youth: catch at today, forget the days before

No, thank you John : Let us strike hands as….

hearty friends…only don’t keep in view ulterior ends

No, thank you John : And points not understood…

in open treaty

Twice : I took my heart in my hand (o my love, o my love)…

…you took my heart in your hand

Twice : let me fall or stand…

let me live or die

Twice : Yet a woman’s words are weak;

you should speak not i

Twice: with a friendly smile….

with a critical eye, scanned, then set it down

Twice : it is still unripe…

wait while the skylarks pip, till the corn grows brown

Twice: As you set it down it broke…

broke but I did not wince

Twice: I smiled at the speech you spoke…

at your judgement that I heard: but i have not often smiled since then

Twice: I take my heart O my God O my God…

I take my broken heart in my hand…my hope was written on sand

Twice : now let thy judgement stand…

- yea judge me now

Twice : This heart take thou to scan both within….

and without: refine with fire its gold, purge thou its dross away

Twice I take my heart in my hand…

- I shall not die but live - before thy face I stand

Twice: All that I have I bring…

all that I am I give

Good Friday : Am I a stone and not a sheep…

…to number drop by drop thy blood’s slow loss and yet not weep?

Good Friday: No so those women who loved…

…not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; not so the thief was moved

Good Friday : 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

Good Friday : seek thy sheep…

true Sheperd of the flock

Good Friday: Greater than Moses turn…

and look once more and smite a rock

In the round tower at Jhansi : a hundred, a thousand to one…

no hope in the world remained

In the round tower at Jhansi : The swarming…

howling wretches below gained and gained and gained

In the round tower at Jhansi : Skene looked at his pale young wife…

…young strong and so full of life, the agony struck then dumb

In the round tower at Jhansi : God…

forgive them this

In the round tower at Jhansi : ‘wiill it hurt much?’ ‘No, mine own….

I wish I could bear the pang for both;’ ‘I wish I could bear the pang alone: courage dear, I am not loth’

in the round tower at Jhansi : Kiss and kiss…

it is not pain thus to kiss and die

Soeur Louise de la Misercorde : I have desired…

and have been desired; but now the days are over of desire

Soeur Louise de la Misercorde: now the dust and dying embers…

mock my fire; where is the hire for which my life was hired ?

Soeur Luoise de la Misercorde and memory, a bottomless…

gut of mire, and love a font of tears outrunning measure

Soeur Luoise de la Misercorde: now from my heart, love’s…

deathbed, trickes and trickes, drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire

Soeur Louise de la Misercorde : The dross of life, of love…

of spent desire: alas my rose of life gone all to prickles

Soeur Louise de la Misercorde: Stunting my hope which…

might have strained by higher, turning my garden plot to barren mire

Soeur Louise de la Misercorde : O vanity…

of vanities, desire