Poetry Day - Yet in all else I long for
Today I thought I would post a couple of poems from Christina Rossetti's Verses, her collection of 'religious verse'. These poems tend to be less well known, being far more explicitly Christian in their subject matter. You can perhaps detect running through them that Christina knew all about die Sehnsucht, and it's source, after her way, particularly in lines like 'Yet in all else I long for, long for Thee' and 'Who looks on Thee looks full on his desire'.
Light of Light
by Christina Rossetti
O Christ our Light, Whom even in darkness we
(So we look up) discern and gaze upon,
O Christ, Thou loveliest Light that ever shone,
Thou Light of Light, Fount of all lights that be,
Grant us clear vision of Thy Light to see,
Tho' other lights elude us, or begone
Into the secret of oblivion,
Or gleam in places higher than man's degree.
Who looks on Thee looks full on his desire,
Who looks on Thee looks full on Very Love:
Looking, he answers well, "What lack I yet?"
His heat and cold wait not on earthly fire,
His wealth is not of earth to lose or get;
Earth reels, but he has stored his store above.
"The gold of that land is good"
by Christina Rossetti
I long for joy, O Lord, I long for gold,
I long for all Thou profferest to me,
I long for the unimagined manifold
Abundance laid up in Thy treasury.
I long for pearls, but not from mundane sea;
I long for palms, but not from earthly mould;
Yet in all else I long for, long for Thee,
Thyself to hear and worship and behold.
For Thee, beyond the splendour of that day
Where all is day and is not any night;
For Thee, beyond refreshment of that rest
To which tired saints press on for it's delight:-
Or if not thus for Thee, yet Thee I pray
To make me long so till Thou make me blest.