Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)

Dream Land

WHERE sunless rivers weep

Their waves into the deep,

She sleeps a charmed sleep:

Awake her not.

Led by a single star,

She came from very far

To seek where shadows are

Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,

She left the fields of corn,

For twilight cold and lorn

And water springs.

Through sleep, as through a veil,

She sees the sky look pale,

And hears the nightingale

That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest

Shed over brow and breast;

Her face is toward the west,

The purple land.

She cannot see the grain

Ripening on hill and plain,

She cannot feel the rain

Upon her hand:

Rest, rest, for evermore

Upon a mossy shore;

Rest, rest, at the heart’s core

Till time shall cease:

Sleep that no pain shall wake;

Night that no morn shall break,

Till joy shall overtake

Her perfect peace.