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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

A Fisher-Wife

Christina Rossetti

The soonest mended, nothing said;
  And help may rise from east or west;
But my two hands are lumps of lead,
  My heart sits leaden in my breast.

O north wind swoop not from the north,
  O south wind linger in the south,
Oh come not raving raging forth,
  To bring my heart into my mouth;

For I’ve a husband out at sea,
  Afloat on feeble planks of wood;
He does not know what fear may be;
  I would have told him if I could.

I would have locked him in my arms,
  I would have hid him in my heart;
For oh! the waves are fraught with harms,
  And he and I so far apart.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Poems | Little, Brown, and Company, 1906
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