Rossetti: a better resurrection

Wednesday, April 27, 2011
    Feast of Christina Rossetti, Poet, 1894
Meditation:
    Quicken me, O LORD, for thy name’s sake: for thy righteousness’ sake bring my soul out of trouble.
    —Psalm 143:11 (KJV)
Quotation:
A Better Resurrection

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
    My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
    Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
    No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
        O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
    My harvest dwindled to a husk;
Truly my life is void and brief
    And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
    No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of spring;
        O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
    A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
    Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perished thing,
    Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
        O Jesus, drink of me.
    ... Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), Christina Rossetti: the complete poems, London: Penguin Classics, 2001, p. 62 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You take broken lives and remake them.

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