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2.12: Christina Rosetti (1830-1894)

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    Born into an artistic family—her brother was D. G. Rossetti—Christina Rossetti started writing while still in her teens. An unofficial member of the Pre-Raphaelites, Christina published seven of her poems in The Germ. She also was briefly engaged to marry John Collinson (1825-1881), a Pre-Raphaelite, until he returned to Roman Catholicism.

    A strong evangelical, Rossetti wrote religious lyrical poetry and prose works, including Seek and Find (1879), Called To Be Saints (1881), and The Face of the Deep (1892). Her clipboard_efdadf078ec9c57441a9bd04c50b61a29.pngmost famous work, Goblin Market, is rich with religious imagery channeling both spiritual and (uncannily) physical temptation, passion, and redemption. Its erotic undertones are softened and made acceptable to contemporary readers by its child-like, fairy-tale structure, and conventional moral. Its exploration of a “fallen” woman who is not ejected from Eden may have been influenced by Rossetti’s volunteer work at St. Mary Magdalene’s home for prostitutes and unwed mothers.

    Other of Rossetti’s works were more straightforwardly intended for children, including Sing-Song: a Nursery Rhyme Book (1872). She also published a hybrid of poetry and prose, Time Flies (1882), and encyclopedic entries on Italian literature.

    Though on the surface she lived the house-bound life of an unmarried woman devoted to her family, Rossetti nevertheless entered the public realm with her writing, her many friendships with fellow writers and artists, and her social work. Her writing, with its somewhat general themes of faith and love, expresses her individuality and intense feelings through its metrical mastery, painterly details, and natural imagery.

    Rossetti died of breast cancer in 1894.

    2.12.1: “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 weight.

    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-faced 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

    clipboard_ecfc19df208548c875b8d50a3ca799b14.png

    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;

    To-morrow 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.’

    clipboard_e4e53bb5d2e4504dc1e3d12099236b5c4.pngGolden 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 rest:

    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 homeward 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 used 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:’ —

    Beside the brook, along the glen,

    She heard the tramp of goblin men,

    The voice and stir

    Poor Laura could not hear;

    Longed to buy fruit to comfort her,

    But feared to pay too dear.

    She thought of Jeanie in her grave,

    Who should have been a bride;

    But who for joys brides hope to have

    Fell sick and died

    In her gay prime,

    In earliest Winter time

    With the first glazing rime,

    With the first snow-fall of crisp Winter time.

    Till Laura dwindling

    Seemed knocking at Death’s door:

    Then Lizzie weighed no more

    Better and worse;

    But put a silver penny in her purse,

    Kissed Laura, crossed the heath with clumps of furze

    At twilight, halted by the brook:

    And for the first time in her life

    Began to listen and look.

    Laughed every goblin

    When they spied her peeping:

    Came towards her hobbling,

    Flying, running, leaping,

    Puffing and blowing,

    Chuckling, clapping, crowing,

    Clucking and gobbling,

    Mopping and mowing,

    Full of airs and graces,

    Pulling wry faces,

    Demure grimaces,

    Cat-like and rat-like,

    Ratel—and wombat-like,

    Snail-paced in a hurry,

    Parrot-voiced and whistler,

    Helter skelter, hurry skurry,

    Chattering like magpies,

    Fluttering like pigeons,

    Gliding like fishes,—

    Hugged her and kissed her:

    Squeezed and caressed her:

    Stretched up their dishes,

    Panniers, and plates:

    ‘Look at our apples

    Russet and dun,

    Bob at our cherries,

    Bite at our peaches,

    Citrons and dates,

    Grapes for the asking,

    Pears red with basking

    Out in the sun,

    Plums on their twigs;

    Pluck them and suck them,

    Pomegranates, figs.’ —

    ‘Good folk,’ said Lizzie,

    Mindful of Jeanie:

    ‘Give me much and many:’ —

    Held out her apron,

    Tossed them her penny.

    ‘Nay, take a seat with us,

    Honour and eat with us,’

    They answered grinning:

    ‘Our feast is but beginning.

    Night yet is early,

    Warm and dew-pearly,

    Wakeful and starry:

    Such fruits as these

    No man can carry;

    Half their bloom would fly,

    Half their dew would dry,

    Half their flavour would pass by.

    Sit down and feast with us,

    Be welcome guest with us,

    Cheer you and rest with us.’ —

    ‘Thank you,’ said Lizzie: ‘But one waits

    At home alone for me:

    So without further parleying,

    If you will not sell me any

    Of your fruits though much and many,

    Give me back my silver penny

    I tossed you for a fee.’ —

    They began to scratch their pates,

    No longer wagging, purring,

    But visibly demurring,

    Grunting and snarling.

    One called her proud,

    Cross-grained, uncivil;

    Their tones waxed loud,

    Their looks were evil.

    Lashing their tails

    They trod and hustled her,

    Elbowed and jostled her,

    Clawed with their nails,

    Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,

    Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,

    Twitched her hair out by the roots,

    Stamped upon her tender feet,

    Held her hands and squeezed their fruits

    Against her mouth to make her eat.

    White and golden Lizzie stood,

    Like a lily in a flood, —

    Like a rock of blue-veined stone

    Lashed by tides obstreperously, —

    Like a beacon left alone

    In a hoary roaring sea,

    Sending up a golden fire, —

    Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree

    White with blossoms honey-sweet

    Sore beset by wasp and bee, —

    Like a royal virgin town

    Topped with gilded dome and spire

    Close beleaguered by a fleet

    Mad to tug her standard down.

    One may lead a horse to water,

    Twenty cannot make him drink.

    Though the goblins cuffed and caught her,

    Coaxed and fought her,

    Bullied and besought her,

    Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,

    Kicked and knocked her,

    Mauled and mocked her,

    Lizzie uttered not a word;

    Would not open lip from lip

    Lest they should cram a mouthful in:

    But laughed in heart to feel the drip

    Of juice that syrupped all her face,

    And lodged in dimples of her chin,

    And streaked her neck which quaked like curd.

    At last the evil people,

    Worn out by her resistance,

    Flung back her penny, kicked their fruit

    Along whichever road they took,

    Not leaving root or stone or shoot;

    Some writhed into the ground,

    Some dived into the brook

    With ring and ripple,

    Some scudded on the gale without a sound,

    Some vanished in the distance.

    In a smart, ache, tingle,

    Lizzie went her way;

    Knew not was it night or day;

    Sprang up the bank, tore thro’ the furze,

    Threaded copse and dingle,

    And heard her penny jingle

    Bouncing in her purse, —

    Its bounce was music to her ear.

    She ran and ran

    As if she feared some goblin man

    Dogged her with gibe or curse

    Or something worse:

    But not one goblin skurried after,

    Nor was she pricked by fear;

    The kind heart made her windy-paced

    That urged her home quite out of breath with haste

    And inward laughter.

    She cried ‘Laura,’ up the garden,

    ‘Did you miss me?

    Come and kiss me.

    Never mind my bruises,

    Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices

    Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,

    Goblin pulp and goblin dew.

    Eat me, drink me, love me;

    Laura, make much of me:

    For your sake I have braved the glen

    And had to do with goblin merchant men.’

    Laura started from her chair,

    Flung her arms up in the air,

    Clutched her hair:

    ‘Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted

    For my sake the fruit forbidden?

    Must your light like mine be hidden,

    Your young life like mine be wasted,

    Undone in mine undoing,

    And ruined in my ruin,

    Thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?’ —

    She clung about her sister,

    Kissed and kissed and kissed her:

    Tears once again

    Refreshed her shrunken eyes,

    Dropping like rain

    After long sultry drouth;

    Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,

    She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth.

    Her lips began to scorch,

    That juice was wormwood to her tongue,

    She loathed the feast:

    Writhing as one possessed she leaped and sung,

    Rent all her robe, and wrung

    Her hands in lamentable haste,

    And beat her breast.

    Her locks streamed like the torch

    Borne by a racer at full speed,

    Or like the mane of horses in their flight,

    Or like an eagle when she stems the light

    Straight toward the sun,

    Or like a caged thing freed,

    Or like a flying flag when armies run.

    Swift fire spread through her veins, knocked at her heart,

    Met the fire smouldering there

    And overbore its lesser flame;

    She gorged on bitterness without a name:

    Ah! fool, to choose such part

    Of soul-consuming care!

    Sense failed in the mortal strife:

    Like the watch-tower of a town

    Which an earthquake shatters down,

    Like a lightning-stricken mast,

    Like a wind-uprooted tree

    Spun about,

    Like a foam-topped waterspout

    Cast down headlong in the sea,

    She fell at last;

    Pleasure past and anguish past,

    Is it death or is it life?

    Life out of death.

    That night long Lizzie watched by her,

    Counted her pulse’s flagging stir,

    Felt for her breath,

    Held water to her lips, and cooled her face

    With tears and fanning leaves:

    But when the first birds chirped about their eaves,

    And early reapers plodded to the place

    Of golden sheaves,

    And dew-wet grass

    Bowed in the morning winds so brisk to pass,

    And new buds with new day

    Opened of cup-like lilies on the stream,

    Laura awoke as from a dream,

    Laughed in the innocent old way,

    Hugged Lizzie but not twice or thrice;

    Her gleaming locks showed not one thread of grey,

    Her breath was sweet as May

    And light danced in her eyes.

    Days, weeks, months, years

    Afterwards, when both were wives

    With children of their own;

    Their mother-hearts beset with fears,

    Their lives bound up in tender lives;

    Laura would call the little ones

    And tell them of her early prime,

    Those pleasant days long gone

    Of not-returning time:

    Would talk about the haunted glen,

    The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,

    Their fruits like honey to the throat

    But poison in the blood;

    (Men sell not such in any town:)

    Would tell them how her sister stood

    In deadly peril to do her good,

    And win the fiery antidote:

    Then joining hands to little hands

    Would bid them cling together,

    ‘For there is no friend like a sister

    In calm or stormy weather;

    To cheer one on the tedious way,

    To fetch one if one goes astray,

    To lift one if one totters down,

    To strengthen whilst one stands.’

    2.12.2: Reading and Review Questions

    1. Rossetti was an unofficial member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. She was a model for many of their paintings. Does Goblin Market reveal any Pre-Raphaelite qualities? If so, to what effect? How, if at all, does her gender affect her rendering of these qualities?
    2. How does Rossetti use nature and nature imagery in this poem, and why?
    3. How would Rossetti’s contemporaries view the ending with the fallen but redeemed Lizzie surrounded by her own children?
    4. Does this poem include any positive figure identified as masculine? Why, or why not?

    This page titled 2.12: Christina Rosetti (1830-1894) is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Bonnie J. Robinson (University of North Georgia Press) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.