Mother Country by Christina Georgina Rossetti
The speaker dreams of a radiant country and wonders whether angels draw nearer during this longing. Death brings rulers and servants alike into the grave; if the life beyond earthly death is true life, the speaker reasons, earthly existence is only a breath and a shadow.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Religious Poetry, Meditative Poetry · 556 words
First lines
Oh what is that country / And where can it be, / Not mine own country, / But dearer far to me? / Yet mine own country, / If I one day may see / Its spices and cedars, / Its gold and ivory.
As I lie dreaming / It rises, that land; / There rises before me / Its green golden strand, / With the bowing cedars / And the shining sand; / It sparkles and flashes / Like a shaken brand.
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — A first-person speaker expresses longing for a dreamed country in rhymed stanzas before reflecting on mortality.
- Religious Poetry — The speaker wonders whether angels draw nearer, affirms that God sees the buried dead, and invokes the Preacher's words about vanity.
- Meditative Poetry — The speaker considers how death removes distinctions of rank, beauty and strength, then questions earthly life's substance beside another life.
Tags
mortality · afterlife · angels · spiritual longing · burial
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Mother Country is listed on Textopian as a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Religious Poetry, Meditative Poetry
- Length: 556 words
- Structure: 1 section, 9 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for Mother Country by Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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