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Christina Rossetti: Poems

Devotional Pieces: 'The Love Of Christ Which Passeth Knowledge'


I bore with thee long weary days and nights,

Through many pangs of heart, through many tears;

I bore with thee, thy hardness, coldness, slights,

For three and thirty years.


Who else had dared for thee what I have dared?

I plunged the depth most deep from bliss above;

I not My flesh, I not My spirit spared:

Give thou Me love for love.


For thee I thirsted in the daily drouth,

For thee I trembled in the nightly frost: 10

Much sweeter thou than honey to My mouth:

Why wilt thou still be lost?


I bore thee on My shoulders and rejoiced:

Men only marked upon My shoulders borne

The branding cross; and shouted hungry-voiced,

Or wagged their heads in scorn.


Thee did nails grave upon My hands, thy name

Did thorns for frontlets stamp between Mine eyes:

I, Holy One, put on thy guilt and shame;

I, God, Priest, Sacrifice. 20


A thief upon My right hand and My left;

Six hours alone, athirst, in misery:

At length in death one smote My heart and cleft

A hiding-place for thee.


Nailed to the racking cross, than bed of down

More dear, whereon to stretch Myself and sleep:

So did I win a kingdom,--share my crown;

A harvest,--come and reap.

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