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by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

Amor Mundi
Language: English 
“Oh where are you going with your love-locks flowing
     On the west wind blowing along this valley track?”
“The downhill path is easy, come with me an it please ye,
     We shall escape the uphill by never turning back.”

So they two went together in glowing August weather,
     The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right;
And dear she was to dote on, her swift feet seemed to float on
     The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight.

“Oh what is that in heaven where gray cloud-flakes are seven,
     Where blackest clouds hang riven just at the rainy skirt?”
“Oh that’s a meteor sent us, a message dumb, portentous,
     An undeciphered solemn signal of help or hurt.”

“Oh what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly,
     Their scent comes rich and sickly?” — “A scaled and hooded worm.”
“Oh what’s that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow?”
     “Oh that’s a thin dead body which waits the eternal term.”

“Turn again, O my sweetest, — turn again, false and fleetest:
     This beaten way thou beatest I fear is hell’s own track.”
“Nay, too steep for hill-mounting; nay, too late for cost-counting:
     This downhill path is easy, but there’s no turning back.”

Text Authorship:

  • by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 - 1894) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Juliana Hall (b. 1958), "Amor Mundi" [ soprano and piano ], from Christina's World -- 5 Songs for Soprano and Piano on Poems by Christina Rossetti, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this page: David Sims [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2017-09-24
Line count: 20
Word count: 208

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