<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=356201" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Under The Rose</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The iniquity of the fathers upon the children.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh the rose of keenest thorn!<br>One hidden summer morn<br>Under the rose I was born.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I do not guess his name<br>Who wrought my Mother's shame,<br>And gave me life forlorn,<br>But my Mother, Mother, Mother,<br>I know her from all other.<br>My Mother pale and mild,<br>Fair as ever was seen, <br>She was but scarce sixteen,<br>Little more than a child,<br>When I was born<br>To work her scorn.<br>With secret bitter throes,<br>In a passion of secret woes,<br>She bore me under the rose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One who my Mother nursed<br>Took me from the first:—<br>'O nurse, let me look upon <br>This babe that costs so dear;<br>To-morrow she will be gone:<br>Other mothers may keep<br>Their babes awake and asleep,<br>But I must not keep her here.'—<br>Whether I know or guess,<br>I know this not the less.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So I was sent away<br>That none might spy the truth:<br>And my childhood waxed to youth <br>And I left off childish play.<br>I never cared to play<br>With the village boys and girls;<br>And I think they thought me proud,<br>I found so little to say<br>And kept so from the crowd:<br>But I had the longest curls<br>And I had the largest eyes<br>And my teeth were small like pearls;<br>The girls might flout and scout me, <br>But the boys would hang about me<br>In sheepish mooning wise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Our one-street village stood<br>A long mile from the town,<br>A mile of windy down<br>And bleak one-sided wood,<br>With not a single house.<br>Our town itself was small,<br>With just the common shops,<br>And throve in its small way. <br>Our neighbouring gentry reared<br>The good old-fashioned crops,<br>And made old-fashioned boasts<br>Of what John Bull would do<br>If Frenchman Frog appeared,<br>And drank old-fashioned toasts,<br>And made old-fashioned bows<br>To my Lady at the Hall.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My Lady at the Hall<br>Is grander than they all: <br>Hers is the oldest name<br>In all the neighbourhood;<br>But the race must die with her<br>Though she's a lofty dame,<br>For she's unmarried still.<br>Poor people say she's good<br>And has an open hand<br>As any in the land,<br>And she's the comforter<br>Of many sick and sad; <br>My nurse once said to me<br>That everything she had<br>Came of my Lady's bounty:<br>'Though she's greatest in the county<br>She's humble to the poor,<br>No beggar seeks her door<br>But finds help presently.<br>I pray both night and day<br>For her, and you must pray:<br>But she'll never feel distress <br>If needy folk can bless.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I was a little maid<br>When here we came to live<br>From somewhere by the sea.<br>Men spoke a foreign tongue<br>There where we used to be<br>When I was merry and young,<br>Too young to feel afraid;<br>The fisher folk would give<br>A kind strange word to me, <br>There by the foreign sea:<br>I don't know where it was,<br>But I remember still<br>Our cottage on a hill,<br>And fields of flowering grass<br>On that fair foreign shore.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I liked my old home best,<br>But this was pleasant too:<br>So here we made our nest<br>And here I grew. <br>And now and then my Lady<br>In riding past our door<br>Would nod to Nurse and speak,<br>Or stoop and pat my cheek;<br>And I was always ready<br>To hold the field-gate wide<br>For my Lady to go through;<br>My Lady in her veil<br>So seldom put aside,<br>My Lady grave and pale. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I often sat to wonder<br>Who might my parents be,<br>For I knew of something under<br>My simple-seeming state.<br>Nurse never talked to me<br>Of mother or of father,<br>But watched me early and late<br>With kind suspicious cares:<br>Or not suspicious, rather<br>Anxious, as if she knew <br>Some secret I might gather<br>And smart for unawares.<br>Thus I grew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Nurse waxed old and grey,<br>Bent and weak with years.<br>There came a certain day<br>That she lay upon her bed<br>Shaking her palsied head,<br>With words she gasped to say<br>Which had to stay unsaid. <br>Then with a jerking hand<br>Held out so piteously<br>She gave a ring to me<br>Of gold wrought curiously,<br>A ring which she had worn<br>Since the day I was born,<br>She once had said to me:<br>I slipped it on my finger;<br>Her eyes were keen to linger<br>On my hand that slipped it on; <br>Then she sighed one rattling sigh<br>And stared on with sightless eye:—<br>The one who loved me was gone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How long I stayed alone<br>With the corpse I never knew,<br>For I fainted dead as stone:<br>When I came to life once more<br>I was down upon the floor,<br>With neighbours making ado<br>To bring me back to life. <br>I heard the sexton's wife<br>Say: 'Up, my lad, and run<br>To tell it at the Hall;<br>She was my Lady's nurse,<br>And done can't be undone.<br>I'll watch by this poor lamb.<br>I guess my Lady's purse<br>Is always open to such:<br>I'd run up on my crutch<br>A cripple as I am,' <br>(For cramps had vexed her much)<br>'Rather than this dear heart<br>Lack one to take her part.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For days day after day<br>On my weary bed I lay<br>Wishing the time would pass;<br>Oh, so wishing that I was<br>Likely to pass away:<br>For the one friend whom I knew<br>Was dead, I knew no other, <br>Neither father nor mother;<br>And I, what should I do?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One day the sexton's wife<br>Said: 'Rouse yourself, my dear:<br>My Lady has driven down<br>From the Hall into the town,<br>And we think she's coming here.<br>Cheer up, for life is life.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I would not look or speak,<br>Would not cheer up at all. <br>My tears were like to fall,<br>So I turned round to the wall<br>And hid my hollow cheek<br>Making as if I slept,<br>As silent as a stone,<br>And no one knew I wept.<br>What was my Lady to me,<br>The grand lady from the Hall?<br>She might come, or stay away,<br>I was sick at heart that day: <br>The whole world seemed to be<br>Nothing, just nothing to me,<br>For aught that I could see.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet I listened where I lay:<br>A bustle came below,<br>A clear voice said: 'I know;<br>I will see her first alone,<br>It may be less of a shock<br>If she's so weak to-day:'—<br>A light hand turned the lock, <br>A light step crossed the floor,<br>One sat beside my bed:<br>But never a word she said.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For me, my shyness grew<br>Each moment more and more:<br>So I said never a word<br>And neither looked nor stirred;<br>I think she must have heard<br>My heart go pit-a-pat:<br>Thus I lay, my Lady sat, <br>More than a mortal hour—<br>(I counted one and two<br>By the house-clock while I lay):<br>I seemed to have no power<br>To think of a thing to say,<br>Or do what I ought to do,<br>Or rouse myself to a choice.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At last she said: 'Margaret,<br>Won't you even look at me?'<br>A something in her voice <br>Forced my tears to fall at last,<br>Forced sobs from me thick and fast;<br>Something not of the past,<br>Yet stirring memory;<br>A something new, and yet<br>Not new, too sweet to last,<br>Which I never can forget.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I turned and stared at her:<br>Her cheek showed hollow-pale;<br>Her hair like mine was fair, <br>A wonderful fall of hair<br>That screened her like a veil;<br>But her height was statelier,<br>Her eyes had depth more deep;<br>I think they must have had<br>Always a something sad,<br>Unless they were asleep.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">While I stared, my Lady took<br>My hand in her spare hand<br>Jewelled and soft and grand, <br>And looked with a long long look<br>Of hunger in my face;<br>As if she tried to trace<br>Features she ought to know,<br>And half hoped, half feared, to find.<br>Whatever was in her mind<br>She heaved a sigh at last,<br>And began to talk to me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Your nurse was my dear nurse,<br>And her nursling's dear,' said she: <br>'I never knew that she was worse<br>Till her poor life was past'<br>(Here my Lady's tears dropped fast):<br>'I might have been with her,<br>But she had no comforter.<br>She might have told me much<br>Which now I shall never know,<br>Never never shall know.'<br>She sat by me sobbing so,<br>And seemed so woe-begone, <br>That I laid one hand upon<br>Hers with a timid touch,<br>Scarce thinking what I did,<br>Not knowing what to say:<br>That moment her face was hid<br>In the pillow close by mine,<br>Her arm was flung over me,<br>She hugged me, sobbing so<br>As if her heart would break,<br>And kissed me where I lay. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">After this she often came<br>To bring me fruit or wine,<br>Or sometimes hothouse flowers.<br>And at nights I lay awake<br>Often and often thinking<br>What to do for her sake.<br>Wet or dry it was the same:<br>She would come in at all hours,<br>Set me eating and drinking<br>And say I must grow strong; <br>At last the day seemed long<br>And home seemed scarcely home<br>If she did not come.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Well, I grew strong again:<br>In time of primroses,<br>I went to pluck them in the lane;<br>In time of nestling birds,<br>I heard them chirping round the house;<br>And all the herds<br>Were out at grass when I grew strong, <br>And days were waxen long,<br>And there was work for bees<br>Among the May-bush boughs,<br>And I had shot up tall,<br>And life felt after all<br>Pleasant, and not so long<br>When I grew strong.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I was going to the Hall<br>To be my Lady's maid:<br>'Her little friend,' she said to me, <br>'Almost her child,'<br>She said and smiled<br>Sighing painfully;<br>Blushing, with a second flush<br>As if she blushed to blush.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Friend, servant, child: just this<br>My standing at the Hall;<br>The other servants call me 'Miss,'<br>My Lady calls me 'Margaret,'<br>With her clear voice musical. <br>She never chides when I forget<br>This or that; she never chides.<br>Except when people come to stay,<br>(And that's not often) at the Hall,<br>I sit with her all day<br>And ride out when she rides.<br>She sings to me and makes me sing;<br>Sometimes I read to her,<br>Sometimes we merely sit and talk.<br>She noticed once my ring <br>And made me tell its history:<br>That evening in our garden walk<br>She said she should infer<br>The ring had been my father's first,<br>Then my mother's, given for me<br>To the nurse who nursed<br>My mother in her misery,<br>That so quite certainly<br>Some one might know me, who…<br>Then she was silent, and I too. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I hate when people come:<br>The women speak and stare<br>And mean to be so civil.<br>This one will stroke my hair,<br>That one will pat my cheek<br>And praise my Lady's kindness,<br>Expecting me to speak;<br>I like the proud ones best<br>Who sit as struck with blindness,<br>As if I wasn't there. <br>But if any gentleman<br>Is staying at the Hall<br>(Though few come prying here),<br>My Lady seems to fear<br>Some downright dreadful evil,<br>And makes me keep my room<br>As closely as she can:<br>So I hate when people come,<br>It is so troublesome.<br>In spite of all her care, <br>Sometimes to keep alive<br>I sometimes do contrive<br>To get out in the grounds<br>For a whiff of wholesome air,<br>Under the rose you know:<br>It's charming to break bounds,<br>Stolen waters are sweet,<br>And what's the good of feet<br>If for days they mustn't go?<br>Give me a longer tether, <br>Or I may break from it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now I have eyes and ears<br>And just some little wit:<br>'Almost my Lady's child;'<br>I recollect she smiled,<br>Sighed and blushed together;<br>Then her story of the ring<br>Sounds not improbable,<br>She told it me so well<br>It seemed the actual thing:— <br>Oh, keep your counsel close,<br>But I guess under the rose,<br>In long past summer weather<br>When the world was blossoming,<br>And the rose upon its thorn:<br>I guess not who he was<br>Flawed honour like a glass,<br>And made my life forlorn,<br>But my Mother, Mother, Mother,<br>Oh, I know her from all other. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">My Lady, you might trust<br>Your daughter with your fame.<br>Trust me, I would not shame<br>Our honourable name,<br>For I have noble blood<br>Though I was bred in dust<br>And brought up in the mud.<br>I will not press my claim,<br>Just leave me where you will:<br>But you might trust your daughter, <br>For blood is thicker than water<br>And you're my mother still.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So my Lady holds her own<br>With condescending grace,<br>and fills her lofty place<br>With an untroubled face<br>As a queen may fill a throne.<br>While I could hint a tale—<br>(But then I am her child)—<br>Would make her quail; <br>Would set her in the dust,<br>Lorn with no comforter,<br>Her glorious hair defiled<br>And ashes on her cheek:<br>The decent world would thrust<br>Its finger out at her,<br>Not much displeased I think<br>To make a nine days' stir;<br>The decent world would sink<br>Its voice to speak of her. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now this is what I mean<br>To do, no more, no less:<br>Never to speak, or show<br>Bare sign of what I know.<br>Let the blot pass unseen;<br>Yea, let her never guess<br>I hold the tangled clue<br>She huddles out of view.<br>Friend, servant, almost child,<br>So be it and nothing more <br>On this side of the grave.<br>Mother, in Paradise,<br>You'll see with clearer eyes;<br>Perhaps in this world even<br>When you are like to die<br>And face to face with Heaven<br>You'll drop for once the lie:<br>But you must drop the mask, not I.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My Lady promises<br>Two hundred pounds with me <br>Whenever I may wed<br>A man she can approve:<br>And since besides her bounty<br>I'm fairest in the county<br>(For so I've heard it said,<br>Though I don't vouch for this),<br>Her promised pounds may move<br>Some honest man to see<br>My virtues and my beauties;<br>Perhaps the rising grazier, <br>Or temperance publican,<br>May claim my wifely duties.<br>Meanwhile I wait their leisure<br>And grace-bestowing pleasure,<br>I wait the happy man;<br>But if I hold my head<br>And pitch my expectations<br>Just higher than their level,<br>They must fall back on patience:<br>I may not mean to wed, <br>Yet I'll be civil.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now sometimes in a dream<br>My heart goes out of me<br>To build and scheme,<br>Till I sob after things that seem<br>So pleasant in a dream:<br>A home such as I see<br>My blessed neighbours live in<br>With father and with mother,<br>All proud of one another, <br>Named by one common name<br>From baby in the bud<br>To full-blown workman father;<br>It's little short of Heaven.<br>I'd give my gentle blood<br>To wash my special shame<br>And drown my private grudge;<br>I'd toil and moil much rather<br>The dingiest cottage drudge<br>Whose mother need not blush, <br>Than live here like a lady<br>And see my Mother flush<br>And hear her voice unsteady<br>Sometimes, yet never dare<br>Ask to share her care.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of course the servants sneer<br>Behind my back at me;<br>Of course the village girls,<br>Who envy me my curls<br>And gowns and idleness, <br>Take comfort in a jeer;<br>Of course the ladies guess<br>Just so much of my history<br>As points the emphatic stress<br>With which they laud my Lady;<br>The gentlemen who catch<br>A casual glimpse of me<br>And turn again to see,<br>Their valets on the watch<br>To speak a word with me, <br>All know and sting me wild;<br>Till I am almost ready<br>To wish that I were dead,<br>No faces more to see,<br>No more words to be said,<br>My Mother safe at last<br>Disburdened of her child,<br>And the past past.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'All equal before God'—<br>Our Rector has it so, <br>And sundry sleepers nod:<br>It may be so; I know<br>All are not equal here,<br>And when the sleepers wake<br>They make a difference.<br>'All equal in the grave'—<br>That shows an obvious sense:<br>Yet something which I crave<br>Not death itself brings near;<br>Now should death half atone <br>For all my past; or make<br>The name I bear my own?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I love my dear old Nurse<br>Who loved me without gains;<br>I love my mistress even,<br>Friend, Mother, what you will:<br>But I could almost curse<br>My Father for his pains;<br>And sometimes at my prayer<br>Kneeling in sight of Heaven <br>I almost curse him still:<br>Why did he set his snare<br>To catch at unaware<br>My Mother's foolish youth;<br>Load me with shame that's hers,<br>And her with something worse,<br>A lifelong lie for truth?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I think my mind is fixed<br>On one point and made up:<br>To accept my lot unmixed; <br>Never to drug the cup<br>But drink it by myself.<br>I'll not be wooed for pelf;<br>I'll not blot out my shame<br>With any man's good name;<br>But nameless as I stand,<br>My hand is my own hand,<br>And nameless as I came<br>I go to the dark land.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'All equal in the grave'— <br>I bide my time till then:<br>'All equal before God'—<br>To-day I feel His rod,<br>To-morrow He may save:<br>Amen.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Christina+Georgina+Rossetti">Christina Georgina Rossetti</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=356201" data-title="Under The Rose de Christina Georgina Rossetti" data-description="'The iniquity of the fathers upon the children.' Oh the rose of keenest thorn! One hidden summer morn Under the rose I was born. I do not guess his name Who wrought my Mother's shame, And gave me life forlorn, But my Mother, Mother, Mother, I kn..."></div> </div> </div>

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