A Dirge.

Topics: classic

Why were you born when the snow was falling? You should have come to the cuckoo's calling, Or when grapes are green in the cluster, Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster For their far off flying From summer dying. Why did you die when the lambs were cropping? You should have died at the apples' dropping, When the grasshopper comes to trouble, And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble, And all winds go sighing For sweet things dying.

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"Why were you born when the snow was falling?..."

"A Dirge." is a quintessential example of Christina Georgina Rossetti's signature style... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

#classic

Related lines

"They are flocking from the East And the West, They are flocking from the North And the South, Every moment setting forth"

Christina Georgina Rossetti

"I sat beneath a willow tree, Where water falls and calls; While fancies upon fancies solaced me, Some true, and some were false."

Christina Georgina Rossetti

"While we slumber and sleep, The sun leaps up from the deep, - Daylight born at the leap, - Rapid, dominant, free, Athirst to b"

Christina Georgina Rossetti

"Love that is dead and buried, yesterday Out of his grave rose up before my face, No recognition in his look, no trace Of memory in"

Christina Georgina Rossetti

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky, And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet, S"

John Clare

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Frank Sidgwick

"They are flocking from the East And the West, ..."

About this line

Classified Tags

Related lines

Join our literary Sanctuary