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Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Poem 031

from Goblin Market
Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
All ripe together
In summer weather,—
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.”...

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Christina Rossetti of London, England is one of the most celebrated female poets of the nineteenth century. Visit Kingdom Poets to find out more.The refrain "Come buy, come buy" contrasts the invitation by God to his people in Isaiah 55:1. This 567-line narrative poem (written in 1859) tells the tale of a woman who risks her life to save her sister from the spell of the goblins' fruit. Symbolism may be seen in the poem relating to Eden, and to Christ's sacrifice and the imagery in the sacrament of Communion.