A fool I was to sleep at noon, And wake when night is chilly Beneath the comfortless cold moon; A fool to pluck my rose too soon, A fool to snap my lily. My garden-plot I have not kept; Faded and all-forsaken, I weep as I have never wept: Oh it was summer when I slept, It's winter now I waken. Talk what you please of future spring And sun-warm'd sweet tomorrow: Strip'd be bare of hope and everything, No more to laugh, no more to sing, I sit alone with sorrow.

— Christina Rossetti

Ah me, but where are now the songs I sang When life was sweet because you call’d them sweet?

— Christina Rossetti

All others are outside myself;I lock my door and bar them out The turmoil, tedium, gad-about. I lock my door upon myself, And bar them out; but who shall wall Self from myself, most loathed of all? If I could once lay down myself, And start self-purged upon the race That all must run ! Death runs apace.

— Christina Rossetti

And all the winds go sighing, For sweet things dying

— Christina Rossetti

Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad.

— Christina Rossetti

Better by far you should forget and smile that you should remember and be sad.

— Christina Rossetti

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun.

— Christina Rossetti

Can anything be sadder than work unfinished? Yes work never begun.

— Christina Rossetti

Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end.

— Christina Rossetti

Evening by evening Among the Brookside rushes, Laura bow'd her head to hear, Lizzie veil'd her blushes:Crouching close together In the cooling weather, With clasping arms and cautioning lips, With tingling cheeks and fingertips."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 the soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?"" Come buy," call the Goblins Hobbling down the glen

— Christina Rossetti