To-Day's Burden by Christina Georgina Rossetti
The speaker laments ceaseless movement, from the earth and heavenly bodies to living creatures bound to die. Neither those who dream and sigh nor those who struggle and fall find rest.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Sonnet, Meditative Poetry · 177 words
First lines
"Arise, depart, for this is not your rest. " / Oh, burden of all burdens, -- still to arise / And still depart, nor rest in any wise! / Rolling, still rolling thus to east from west, / Earth journeys on her immemorial quest, / Whom a moon chases in no different guise. / Thus stars pursue their courses, and thus flies / The sun, and thus all creatures manifest / Unrest, the common heritage, the ban / Flung broadcast on all humankind, -- on all / Who live; for living, all are bound to die. / That which is old, we know that it is man. / These have no rest who sit and dream and sigh, / Nor have those rest who wrestle and who fall.
What this Textopian page supports
To-Day's Burden 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: Sonnet, Meditative Poetry
- Length: 177 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for To-Day's Burden by Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Sonnet — Fourteen rhymed lines move from the restless courses of heavenly bodies to human mortality and the impossibility of rest.
- Meditative Poetry — The speaker considers unrest as the shared condition of living creatures and contrasts dreaming with struggle.
Tags
unrest · mortality · celestial motion · rest · sonnet