The Goblin Market and Other Poems

By Christina Rossetti

In this representative collection of Christina Rossetti’s poems we find a vast array of narrative tales, love lyrics, sonnets, hymns, ballads, and sprightly verses for children. Ranked among the finest English poets of the nineteenth century, Christina Rossetti is a widely read, though not widely imitated poet, recognized for her devotional poetry, influenced by the religious conservatism and asceticism of the Church of England. This collection of poems includes her most renowned work, “Goblin Market”, a narrative poem which tells the tale of two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, who are tempted by river goblins. Also included in this collection is “The Prince’s Progress”, a tragic tale of loss concerning a princess awaiting the return of her prince. Rossetti’s poetry is remarkable for its clarity and simplicity of diction in dealing with themes of truth, beauty, love, death, heavenly joys, earthly pleasures, and purity of faith. All together seventy-one poems are contained herein “The Goblin Market and Other Poems”, a collection of endearing works of inward contemplation and timeless vision which will inspire and delight readers of all ages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Nov 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781420964646

Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti was born in 1830 in London. She was the youngest child in a creative Italian family, which included her famous brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Their father, a poet and political exile from Italy, fell ill when Rossetti was a teenager and the family suffered financial difficulty. Rossetti started writing at a young age and her poems were often influenced by her religious faith. She published various poems in literary magazines, but it was Goblin Market & Other Poems, published in 1862 to great acclaim, that established her position as a prominent poet. She became ill towards the end of her life, first from Graves’ disease and then from cancer, but she continued to write until her death in 1894.

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THE GOBLIN MARKET AND OTHER POEMS

By CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

The Goblin Market and Other Poems

By Christina Rossetti

Print ISBN 13:

eBook ISBN 13:

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CONTENTS

FROM GOBLIN MARKET, AND OTHER POEMS (1862)

GOBLIN MARKET

DREAM LAND

AT HOME

A TRIAD

WINTER RAIN

COUSIN KATE

SPRING

A BIRTHDAY

REMEMBER

AFTER DEATH

AN END

MY DREAM

SONG

THE HOUR AND THE GHOST

A SUMMER WISH

AN APPLE GATHERING

SONG

MAUDE CLARE

ECHO

WINTER: MY SECRET

ANOTHER SPRING

A PEAL OF BELLS

FATA MORGANA

‘NO, THANK YOU, JOHN’

MAY

A PAUSE OF THOUGHT

TWILIGHT CALM

MIRAGE

SONG

SISTER MAUDE

THE FIRST SPRING DAY

THE CONVENT THRESHOLD

UP-HILL

‘A BRUISED REED SHALL HE NOT BREAK’

A BETTER RESURRECTION

THE THREE ENEMIES

THE ONE CERTAINTY

SWEET DEATH

THE WORLD

A TESTIMONY

SLEEP AT SEA

FROM HOUSE TO HOME

FROM THE PRINCE’S PROGRESS, AND OTHER POEMS (1866)

JESSIE CAMERON

SPRING QUIET

A PORTRAIT

DREAM-LOVE

TWICE

SONGS IN A CORNFIELD

THE QUEEN OF HEARTS

ONE DAY

A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW

ON THE WING (A DREAM)

BEAUTY IS VAIN

WHAT WOULD I GIVE?

THE BOURNE

SUMMER

THE GHOST’S PETITION

MEMORY

A ROYAL PRINCESS

SHALL I FORGET?

VANITY OF VANITIES

L. E. L.

LIFE AND DEATH

GROWN AND FLOWN

CHILD’S TALK IN APRIL

DESPISED AND REJECTED

THE LOWEST PLACE

FROM GOBLIN MARKET, THE PRINCE’S PROGRESS AND OTHER POEMS (1875)

CONSIDER

A SMILE AND A SIGH

PARADISE: IN A DREAM

FROM NEW POEMS, HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED OR UNCOLLECTED (1896)

REPINING

LAST NIGHT

SLEEPING AT LAST

From GOBLIN MARKET, AND OTHER POEMS (1862)

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 brown0

(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 moonlight

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

Reviews for The Goblin Market and Other Poems

[quondame · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The title poem is so overwhelmingly sensuous that it belies the restraint theme. I interpret it as closer to an addiction->withdrawal tale where Laura gets the high and Lizzie the withdrawal. As for the rest, there, right in the middle of flowery death, wasNo, Thank You, John(excerpt)"Let Bygones be bygones:Don't call me false, who owed not to be true:I'd rather answer "No" to fifty JohnsThan answer "Yes" to you."There was another moment or two, but nothing so memorable in the -when I'm gone- and -life is vanity, true living is in heaven- verses that follow.

[booksfordinner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not a regular poetry reader, but found this lying around the house and checked it out. A lot of fun, great gothic imagery and sadness.

[crowyhead · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lush, lovely poetry.

[lilywren · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I often find that when I write reviews I waffle on far too much. All I can say about this book is that I find myself wanting more. I want to drink in more of Christinas' poetry and find out more about her, her life and history. I was introduced to her through my love of her brothers' art. Dantes' art and Christina's poetry seem so compatible. The Goblin Market is such a wonderful tale of desire, wanting, haunting and love. So much more than the initial thoughts (at the time) of it being a children's poem. Her other works in this book are so beautiful I cannot describe them in my words. These lack the poetic beauty Rossetti conjures. There is so much sadness, love and, yes, hope in these verses. I love poetry but, up until now, have never found one that I could say 'Yes, this is IT'. But, reading this, I feel in Christina Rossetti, I have indeed found 'it'. I only wish I could conjure up so much emotion and feeling through my use of words as she

[musicmom41 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When I was a teenager I loved Christina Rossetti poems. Shortly after we moved back to California in the early 90’s I picked up this book but never got around to reading it. I stumbled across it a few days ago and decided this would be a good time to get it off my TBR pile. This is a Dover edition of the first book Rossetti published. I decided to save Goblin Market until last because it is quite long and I wanted to get back into her style before I tackled it. It was a wise decision. I’ve been reading a lot of 20th century poetry and at first it was a little difficult to get back into the rhythm of 19th century poetry-which, when I was a teenage I “specialized’ in! But once I got into the flow I once again became immersed in Rossetti’s world. Her poems are haunting and often sad. The introduction quotes Virginia Woolf as saying “Death, oblivion, and rest lap around your songs with their dark wave.” Her two main themes are sensual love and religious devotion. In her life she eventually renounced the first for the second. I now realize why I loved her so much back then. At sixteen I wanted to become a nun—and I wasn’t even Catholic. Even after all these years, I enjoyed these poems. Most were ones I either hadn’t ever read or have forgotten but I also encountered some “old friends.” I plan to look for more of her poems to see how she matured as a poet. My favorite poem of hers wasn’t in this book.

[ryvre_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful poetry. The imagery is so vivid you can almost taste the fruit.

[birdie.newborn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Perhaps an ideal children's story — scary, but comes out right in the end. A bit moralistic, but certainly works on a child's imagination.