Rest by Christina Georgina Rossetti
The speaker asks Earth to enclose a dead woman and keep laughter and sighs away. Freed from the troubles of life, she rests in silence until the morning of Eternity, when she will wake without feeling that the wait was long.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Sonnet, Elegiac Poetry, Religious Poetry · 168 words
First lines
Sonnet.
O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes; / Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth; / Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth / With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs. / She hath no questions, she hath no replies, / Hushed in and curtained with a blessed dearth / Of all that irked her from the hour of birth; / With stillness that is almost Paradise. / Darkness more clear than noonday holdeth her, / Silence more musical than any song; / Even her very heart has ceased to stir: / Until the morning of Eternity / Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be; / And when she wakes she will not think it long.
Genres
- Sonnet — Fourteen rhymed lines move from an appeal to Earth to a description of the woman's rest and eventual awakening.
- Elegiac Poetry — The speaker tenderly addresses the burial and stillness of a woman whose heart has stopped.
- Religious Poetry — Her stillness is compared to Paradise, and her awakening is anticipated at the morning of Eternity.
Tags
death · burial · silence · eternity · sonnet
What this Textopian page supports
Rest 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: Sonnet, Elegiac Poetry, Religious Poetry
- Length: 168 words
- Structure: 1 section, 2 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Difficult (10th-12th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Rest by Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
- Passage-specific claims should cite the exact /read/ URL for the relevant chapter or paragraph