The Bourne by Christina Georgina Rossetti
The speaker anticipates burial beneath grass and flowers, where hours will no longer be counted by passing shadows. Youth, health, and beauty will lose their worth, and a small space will contain what once seemed too large for the earth.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Poetry, Meditative Poetry · 87 words
First lines
Underneath the growing grass, / Underneath the living flowers, / Deeper than the sound of showers: / There we shall not count the hours / By the shadows as they pass.
Youth and health will be but vain, / Beauty reckoned of no worth: / There a very little girth / Can hold round what once the earth / Seemed too narrow to contain.
Genres
- Poetry — Two five-line stanzas use rhyme to connect burial beneath living plants with the body's confinement in a small space.
- Meditative Poetry — The speaker considers how burial will end the counting of hours and diminish the value of youth, health, and beauty.
Tags
death · burial · mortality · time · youth · beauty
What this Textopian page supports
The Bourne 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: Poetry, Meditative Poetry
- Length: 87 words
- Structure: 1 section, 2 paragraphs
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