Explore "An "Immurata" Sister" by Christina Georgina Rossetti on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Life flows down to death; we cannot bind / That current that it should not flee: / Life flows down to death, as rivers find / The inevitable sea.
Men work and think, but women feel; / And so (for I'm a woman, I) / And so I should be glad to die / And cease from impotence of zeal, / And cease from hope, and cease from dread, / And cease from yearnings without gain, / And cease from all this world of pain, / And be at peace among the dead.
Hearts that die, by death renew their youth, / Lightened of this life that doubts and dies; / Silent and contented, while the Truth / Unveiled makes them wise.
Why should I seek and never find / That something which I have not had? / Fair and unutterably sad / The world hath sought time out of mind; / The world hath sought and I have sought, -- / Ah, empty world and empty I! / For we have spent our strength for nought, / And soon it will be time to die.
Sparks fly upward toward their fount of fire, / Kindling, flashing, hovering: -- / Kindle, flash, my soul; mount higher and higher, / Thou whole burnt-offering!