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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Fluttered Wings

Christina Rossetti

The splendor of the kindling day,
    The splendor of the setting sun,
  These move my soul to wend its way,
      And have done
With all we grasp and toil amongst and say.

  The paling roses of a cloud,
    The fading bow that arches space,
  These woo my fancy toward my shroud;
      Toward the place
Of faces veiled, and heads discrowned and bowed.

  The nation of the awful stars,
    The wandering star whose blaze is brief,
  These make me beat against the bars
      Of my grief;
My tedious grief, twin to the life it mars.

  O fretted heart tossed to and fro,
    So fain to flee, so fain to rest!
  All glories that are high or low,
      East or west,
Grow dim to thee who art so fain to go.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Poems | Little, Brown, and Company, 1906
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