Life and Death by Christina Georgina Rossetti
The speaker finds life neither sweet nor good and anticipates death as release from awareness of flowers, birds, passing seasons, and harvested fields. Death promises sleep free from risk and pain, followed by living again.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Meditative Poetry · 201 words
First lines
Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet / To shut our eyes and die: / Nor feel the wild-flowers blow, nor birds dart by / With flitting butterfly, / Nor grass grow long above our heads and feet, / Nor hear the happy lark that soars sky high, / Nor sigh that spring is fleet and summer fleet, / Nor mark the waxing wheat, / Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat.
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Two rhymed stanzas express a speaker's rejection of life and expectation of relief in death.
- Meditative Poetry — The speaker considers what death would remove from awareness, contrasting flowering nature and seasonal decline with undisturbed sleep.
Tags
death · sleep · life after death · seasonal change · pain
What this Textopian page supports
Life and Death is listed on Textopian as a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Meditative Poetry
- Length: 201 words
- Structure: 1 section, 2 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Life and Death by Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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