I didn’t actually realize how long ago Rossetti was writing! Here’s the one I memorized when I was in college — I remember this poem from one of the required Humanities classes. I believe it was actually assigned; I know I loved it. To me, it seems somehow soothing. It was first published in 1862.
Up-Hill
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.
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Let me look for one I’ve never read before, or at least don’t remember.
Oh, whoops, I tripped over another one I know well, another favorite —
Remember
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
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One more! This time, a poem I don’t think I’ve ever seen previously. Rossetti has a lot of poems about loss and death; on first glance, I thought this one was about love. But on second thought, I kind of think this one is also about loss and death.
A Bird Song
It’s a year almost that I have not seen her:
Oh, last summer green things were greener,
Brambles fewer, the blue sky bluer.
It’s surely summer, for there’s a swallow:
Come one swallow, his mate will follow,
The bird race quicken and wheel and thicken.
Oh happy swallow whose mate will follow
O’er height, o’er hollow! I’d be a swallow,
To build this weather one nest together.
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I like ‘Remember’. The sonnet form is my favorite.
Am I wrong, or is that first one also about death? It struck me that way, at least
Oh yes, it’s about death. Indeed, I have read criticism that it’s too on the nose about it.
Thanks – I’m not as well versed (ha!) in this sort of stuff, since my background is more on the tech side of things, so I was second guessing myself.
I *think* remember students from the class asking, Hey, is this about death? Yes, yes it is, and I guess it’s not too “on the nose about it” if people ask.