Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Time Flies. XV. Bury Hope out of SightChristina Georgina Rossetti (18301894)
B
No book for it and no bell;
It never could bear the light
Even while growing and well;
Think if now it could bear
The light on its face of care
And grey scattered hair.
But deep in that silent soul
Which rang no bell for its birth
And rings no funeral toll.
Cover its once bright head;
Nor odours nor tears be shed:
It lived once, it is dead.
The day of its grace how brief:
As the fading of a flower,
As the falling of a leaf,
So brief its day and its hour:
No bud more and no bower
Or hint of a flower.
Shall one bewail it? not one:
Thus it hath been from long ago,
Thus it shall be beneath the sun.
O fleet sun, make haste to flee;
O rivers, fill up the sea;
O Death, set the dying free.
The rivers run as they ran,
Through clouds or through windy reeds
All run as when all began.
Only Death turns at our cries:—
Lo, the Hope we buried with sighs
Alive in Death’s eyes!