Christina Rossetti

Dec 5, 1830 - Dec 29, 1894

 

Dead Before Death

by Christina Rossetti

Sonnet.

Ah! changed and cold, how changed and very cold,
With stiffened smiling lips and cold calm eyes:
Changed, yet the same; much knowing, little wise
This was the promise of the days of old!
Grown hard and stubborn in the ancient mould,
Grown rigid in the sham of lifelong lies:
We hoped for better things as years would rise,
But it is over as a tale once told.
All fallen the blossom that no fruitage bore,
All lost the present and the future time,
All lost, all lost, the lapse that went before:
So lost till death shut-to the opened door,
So lost from chime to everlasting chime,
So cold and lost for ever evermore.

Source:

Goblin Market and Other Poems
Copyright 1865
Macmillan And Co.London and Cambridge