Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress and Other Poems

Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress and Other Poems

GOBLIN MARKET, THE PRINCE'S PROGRESS AND OTHER POEMS

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

This 2011 edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

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CONTENTS

GOBLIN MARKET, AND OTHER POEMS, 1862

GOBLIN MARKET

IN THE ROUND TOWER AT JHANSI, JUNE 8, 1857

DREAM LAND

AT HOME

A TRIAD

LOVE FROM THE NORTH

WINTER RAIN

COUSIN KATE

NOBLE SISTERS

SPRING

THE LAMBS OF GRASMERE, 1860

A BIRTHDAY

REMEMBER

AFTER DEATH

AN END

MY DREAM

SONG ('OH ROSES FOR THE FLUSH OF YOUTH')

THE HOUR AND THE GHOST

A SUMMER WISH

AN APPLE GATHERING

SONG ('TWO DOVES UPON THE SELFSAME BRANCH')

MAUDE CLARE

ECHO

MY SECRET

ANOTHER SPRING

A PEAL OF BELLS

FATA MORGANA

'NO, THANK YOU, JOHN'

MAY

A PAUSE OF THOUGHT

TWILIGHT CALM

WIFE TO HUSBAND

THREE SEASONS

MIRAGE

SHUT OUT

SOUND SLEEP

SONG ('SHE SAT AND SANG ALWAY')

SONG ('WHEN I AM DEAD, MY DEAREST')

DEAD BEFORE DEATH

BITTER FOR SWEET

SISTER MAUDE

REST

THE FIRST SPRING DAY

THE CONVENT THRESHOLD

UP-HILL

Devotional Pieces

'THE LOVE OF CHRIST WHICH PASSETH KNOWLEDGE'

'A BRUISED REED SHALL HE NOT BREAK'

A BETTER RESURRECTION

ADVENT

THE THREE ENEMIES

THE ONE CERTAINTY

CHRISTIAN AND JEW

SWEET DEATH

SYMBOLS

'CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD'

THE WORLD

A TESTIMONY

SLEEP AT SEA

FROM HOUSE TO HOME

OLD AND NEW YEAR DITTIES: NO. I

NO. II

NO. III

AMEN

THE PRINCE'S PROGRESS, AND OTHER POEMS, 1866

THE PRINCE'S PROGRESS

MAIDEN-SONG

JESSIE CAMERON

SPRING QUIET

THE POOR GHOST

A PORTRAIT

DREAM-LOVE

TWICE

SONGS IN A CORNFIELD

A YEAR'S WINDFALLS

THE QUEEN OF HEARTS

ONE DAY

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

LIGHT LOVE

A DREAM

A RING POSY

BEAUTY IS VAIN

LADY MAGGIE

WHAT WOULD I GIVE?

THE BOURNE

SUMMER

AUTUMN

THE GHOST'S PETITION

MEMORY

A ROYAL PRINCESS

SHALL I FORGET?

VANITY OF VANITIES

L. E. L.

LIFE AND DEATH

BIRD OR BEAST?

EVE

GROWN AND FLOWN

A FARM WALK

SOMEWHERE OR OTHER

A CHILL

CHILD'S TALK IN APRIL

GONE FOREVER

UNDER THE ROSE

Devotional Pieces

DESPISED AND REJECTED

LONG BARREN

IF ONLY

DOST THOU NOT CARE?

WEARY IN WELL-DOING

MARTYRS' SONG

AFTER THIS THE JUDGEMENT

GOOD FRIDAY

THE LOWEST PLACE

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 1848–1869

DEATH'S CHILL BETWEEN

HEART'S CHILL BETWEEN

REPINING

SIT DOWN IN THE LOWEST ROOM

MY FRIEND

LAST NIGHT

CONSIDER

HELEN GREY

'BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON'

SEASONS

MOTHER COUNTRY

A SMILE AND A SIGH

DEAD HOPE

AUTUMN VIOLETS

'THEY DESIRE A BETTER COUNTRY'

THE OFFERING OF THE NEW LAW

CONFERENCE BETWEEN CHRIST, THE SAINTS, AND THE SOUL

'COME UNTO ME'

'JESUS, DO I LOVE THEE?'

'I KNOW YOU NOT'

'BEFORE THE PALING OF THE STARS'

EASTER EVEN

PARADISE: IN A DREAM

WITHIN THE VEIL

PARADISE: IN A SYMBOL

AMOR MUNDI

'WHO SHALL DELIVER ME?'

IF

TWILIGHT NIGHT

GOBLIN MARKET, AND OTHER POEMS, 1862

GOBLIN MARKET

MORNING and evening

Maids heard the goblins cry:

'Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy:

Apples and quinces,

Lemons and oranges,

Plump unpecked cherries,

Melons and raspberries,

Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,

Swart-headed mulberries,

Wild free-born cranberries,

Crab-apples, dewberries,

Pine-apples, blackberries,

Apricots, strawberries;—

All ripe together

In summer weather,—

Morns that pass by,

Fair eves that fly;

Come buy, come buy:

Our grapes fresh from the vine,

Pomegranates full and fine,

Dates and sharp bullaces,

Rare pears and greengages,

Damsons and bilberries,

Taste them and try:

Currants and gooseberries,

Bright-fire-like barberries,

Figs to fill your mouth,

Citrons from the South,

Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;

Come buy, come buy.'

Evening by evening

Among the brookside rushes,

Laura bowed her head to hear,

Lizzie veiled her blushes:

Crouching close together

In the cooling weather,

With clasping arms and cautioning lips,

With tingling cheeks and finger tips.

'Lie close,' Laura said,

Pricking up her golden head:

'We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits:

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots?'

'Come buy,' call the goblins

Hobbling down the glen.

'Oh,' cried Lizzie, 'Laura, Laura,

You should not peep at goblin men.'

Lizzie covered up her eyes,

Covered close lest they should look;

Laura reared her glossy head,

And whispered like the restless brook:

'Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,

Down the glen tramp little men.

One hauls a basket,

One bears a plate,

One lugs a golden dish

Of many pounds weigh
t.

How fair the vine must grow

Whose grapes are so luscious;

How warm the wind must blow

Through those fruit bushes.'

'No,' said Lizzie: 'No, no, no;

Their offers should not charm us,

Their evil gifts would harm us.'

She thrust a dimpled finger

In each ear, shut eyes and ran:

Curious Laura chose to linger

Wondering at each merchant man.

One had a cat's face,

One whisked a tail,

One tramped at a rat's pace,

One crawled like a snail,

One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,

One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.

She heard a voice like voice of doves

Cooing all together:

They sounded kind and full of loves

In the pleasant weather.

Laura stretched her gleaming neck

Like a rush-imbedded swan,

Like a lily from the beck,

Like a moonlit poplar branch,

Like a vessel at the launch

When its last restraint is gone.

Backwards up the mossy glen

Turned and trooped the goblin men,

With their shrill repeated cry,

'Come buy, come buy.'

When they reached where Laura was

They stood stock still upon the moss,

Leering at each other,

Brother with queer brother;

Signalling each other,

Brother with sly brother.

One set his basket down,

One reared his plate;

One began to weave a crown

Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown

(Men sell not such in any town);

One heaved the golden weight

Of dish and fruit to offer her:

'Come buy, come buy,' was still their cry.

Laura stared but did not stir,

Longed but had no money:

The whisk-tailed merchant bade her taste

In tones as smooth as honey,

The cat-faced purr'd,

The rat-paced spoke a word

Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;

One parrot-voiced and jolly

Cried 'Pretty Goblin' still for 'Pretty Polly;'—

One whistled like a bird.

But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:

'Good folk, I have no coin;

To take were to purloin:

I have no copper in my purse,

I have no silver either,

And all my gold is on the furze

That shakes in windy weather

Above the rusty heather.'

'You have much gold upon your head,'

They answered all together:

'Buy from us with a golden curl.'

She clipped a precious golden lock,

She dropped a tear more rare than pearl,

Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:

Sweeter than honey from the rock,

Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,

Clearer than water flowed that juice;

She never tasted such before,

How should it cloy with length of use?

She sucked and sucked and sucked the more

Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;

She sucked until her lips were sore;

Then flung the emptied rinds away

But gathered up one kernel stone,

And knew not was it night or day

As she turned home alone.

Lizzie met her at the gate

Full of wise upbraidings:

'Dear, you should not stay so late,

Twilight is not good for maidens;

Should not loiter in the glen

In the haunts of goblin men.

Do you not remember Jeanie,

How she met them in the moonlight,

Took their gifts both choice and many,

Ate their fruits and wore their flowers

Plucked from bowers

Where summer ripens at all hours?

But ever in the noonlight

She pined and pined away;

Sought them by night and day,

Found them no more but dwindled and grew grey;

Then fell with the first snow,

While to this day no grass will grow

Where she lies low:

I planted daisies there a year ago

That never blow.

You should not loiter so.'

'Nay, hush,' said Laura:

'Nay, hush, my sister:

I ate and ate my fill,

Yet my mouth waters still;

Tomorrow night I will

Buy more:' and kissed her:

'Have done with sorrow;

I'll bring you plums tomorrow

Fresh on their mother twigs,

Cherries worth getting;

You cannot think what figs

My teeth have met in,

What melons icy-cold

Piled on a dish of gold

Too huge for me to hold,

What peaches with a velvet nap,

Pellucid grapes without one seed:

Odorous indeed must be the mead

Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink

With lilies at the brink,

And sugar-sweet their sap.'

Golden head by golden head,

Like two pigeons in one nest

Folded in each other's wings,

They lay down in their curtained bed:

Like two blossoms on one stem,

Like two flakes of new-fall'n snow,

Like two wands of ivory

Tipped with gold for awful kings.

Moon and stars gazed in at them,

Wind sang to them lullaby,

Lumbering owls forbore to fly,

Not a bat flapped to and fro

Round their nest:

Cheek to cheek and breast to breast

Locked together in one nest.

Early in the morning

When the first cock crowed his warning,

Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,

Laura rose with Lizzie:

Fetched in honey, milked the cows,

Aired and set to rights the house,

Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,

Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,

Next churned butter, whipped up cream,

Fed their poultry, sat and sewed;

Talked as modest maidens should:

Lizzie with an open heart,

Laura in an absent dream,

One content, one sick in part;

One warbling for the mere bright day's delight,

One longing for the night.

At length slow evening came:

They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;

Lizzie most placid in her look,

Laura most like a leaping flame.

They drew the gurgling water from its deep;

Lizzie plucked purple and rich golden flags,

Then turning homewards said: 'The sunset flushes

Those furthest loftiest crags;

Come, Laura, not another maiden lags,

No wilful squirrel wags,

The beasts and birds are fast asleep.'

But Laura loitered still among the rushes

And said the bank was steep.

And said the hour was early still,

The dew not fall'n, the wind not chill:

Listening ever, but not catching

The customary cry,

'Come buy, come buy,'

With its iterated jingle

Of sugar-baited words:

Not for all her watching

Once discerning even one goblin

Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;

Let alone the herds

That us
ed to tramp along the glen,

In groups or single,

Of brisk fruit-merchant men.

Till Lizzie urged, 'O Laura, come;

I hear the fruit-call but I dare not look:

You should not loiter longer at this brook:

Come with me home.

The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,

Each glowworm winks her spark,

Let us get home before the night grows dark:

For clouds may gather

Though this is summer weather,

Put out the lights and drench us through;

Then if we lost our way what should we do?'

Laura turned cold as stone

To find her sister heard that cry alone,

That goblin cry,

'Come buy our fruits, come buy.'

Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?

Must she no more such succous pasture find,

Gone deaf and blind?

Her tree of life drooped from the root:

She said not one word in her heart's sore ache;

But peering thro' the dimness, nought discerning,

Trudged home, her pitcher dripping all the way;

So crept to bed, and lay

Silent till Lizzie slept;

Then sat up in a passionate yearning,

And gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept

As if her heart would break.

Day after day, night after night,

Laura kept watch in vain

In sullen silence of exceeding pain.

She never caught again the goblin cry:

'Come buy, come buy;'—

She never spied the goblin men

Hawking their fruits along the glen:

But when the noon waxed bright

Her hair grew thin and grey;

She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn

To swift decay and burn

Her fire away.

One day remembering her kernel-stone

She set it by a wall that faced the south;

Dewed it with tears, hoped for a root,

Watched for a waxing shoot,

But there came none;

It never saw the sun,

It never felt the trickling moisture run:

While with sunk eyes and faded mouth

She dreamed of melons, as a traveller sees

False waves in desert drouth

With shade of leaf-crowned trees,

And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.

She no more swept the house,

Tended the fowls or cows,

Fetched honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,

Brought water from the brook:

But sat down listless in the chimney-nook

And would not eat.

Tender Lizzie could not bear

To watch her sister's cankerous care

Yet not to share.

She night and morning

Caught the goblins' cry:

'Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy:'—

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