Explore "The Convent Threshold" by Christina Georgina Rossetti on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
There's blood between us, love, my love, / There's father's blood, there's brother's blood; / And blood's a bar I cannot pass: / I choose the stairs that mount above, / Stair after golden skyward stair, / To city and to sea of glass. / My lily feet are soiled with mud, / With scarlet mud which tells a tale / Of hope that was, of guilt that was, / Of love that shall not yet avail; / Alas, my heart, if I could bare / My heart, this self-same stain is there: / I seek the sea of glass and fire / To wash the spot, to burn the snare; / Lo, stairs are meant to lift us higher: / Mount with me, mount the kindled stair.
Your eyes look earthward, mine look up. / I see the far-off city grand, / Beyond the hills a watered land, / Beyond the gulf a gleaming strand / Of mansions where the righteous sup; / Who sleep at ease among their trees, / Or wake to sing a cadenced hymn / With Cherubim and Seraphim; / They bore the Cross, they drained the cup, / Racked, roasted, crushed, wrenched limb from limb, / They the offscouring of the world: / The heaven of starry heavens unfurled, / The sun before their face is dim.