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    Goblin Market and Other Poems
    Goblin Market and Other Poems
    Goblin Market and Other Poems
    Ebook105 pages50 minutes

    Goblin Market and Other Poems

    By Christina Rossetti

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    "Goblin Market and Other Poems" is a collection of poetic tales by Victorian poet Christina Rossetti. It was her first published work and it received critical acclaim. The poem "Goblin Market" is a story about two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, who live alone near a market that is run by goblins. Each night, the goblins call out to the girls to try their wares, but the girls are wary of their offers. One night, Laura cannot resist temptation, and she gorges herself on the sweet fruits at the goblin market. When she arrives back home, Laura dreams about the fruit, but she can no longer see or hear the goblins. She begins to wither away, and Lizzie sees that her sister needs to eat. Lizzie walks to the market, but the goblins attack her when they realize that she is not purchasing the fruits for herself. They try to force feed their goods to Lizzie, but they ultimately give up. Lizzie goes home and nourishes Laura back to health, and both girls are able to live to warn their own daughters about the dangers of the goblin market. Children and adults alike will enjoy this and other poems in this classic collection.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2013
    ISBN9781420947298
    Author

    Christina Rossetti

    Christina Rossetti was born in 1830 in London. She was the youngest child in a creative Italian family, which included her famous brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Their father, a poet and political exile from Italy, fell ill when Rossetti was a teenager and the family suffered financial difficulty. Rossetti started writing at a young age and her poems were often influenced by her religious faith. She published various poems in literary magazines, but it was Goblin Market & Other Poems, published in 1862 to great acclaim, that established her position as a prominent poet. She became ill towards the end of her life, first from Graves’ disease and then from cancer, but she continued to write until her death in 1894.

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    Reviews for Goblin Market and Other Poems

    4/5

    121 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Lush, lovely poetry.
    • 4/5
      I've never actually read any of Christina Rossetti's poetry before, as far as I know. Which is actually kind of sad, because I loved it. The imagery in the main poem, Goblin Market, was lovely, and the fairytale aspect of it, too. I liked a lot of the other poems in the volume as well. Makes me glad I got it this semester and had chance to enjoy it whole, before I have to pick it apart next semester!
    • 4/5
      Not a regular poetry reader, but found this lying around the house and checked it out. A lot of fun, great gothic imagery and sadness.
    • 5/5
      Beautiful poetry. The imagery is so vivid you can almost taste the fruit.
    • 5/5
      I often find that when I write reviews I waffle on far too much. All I can say about this book is that I find myself wanting more. I want to drink in more of Christinas' poetry and find out more about her, her life and history. I was introduced to her through my love of her brothers' art. Dantes' art and Christina's poetry seem so compatible. The Goblin Market is such a wonderful tale of desire, wanting, haunting and love. So much more than the initial thoughts (at the time) of it being a children's poem. Her other works in this book are so beautiful I cannot describe them in my words. These lack the poetic beauty Rossetti conjures. There is so much sadness, love and, yes, hope in these verses. I love poetry but, up until now, have never found one that I could say 'Yes, this is IT'. But, reading this, I feel in Christina Rossetti, I have indeed found 'it'. I only wish I could conjure up so much emotion and feeling through my use of words as she
    • 4/5
      The title poem is so overwhelmingly sensuous that it belies the restraint theme. I interpret it as closer to an addiction->withdrawal tale where Laura gets the high and Lizzie the withdrawal. As for the rest, there, right in the middle of flowery death, wasNo, Thank You, John(excerpt)"Let Bygones be bygones:Don't call me false, who owed not to be true:I'd rather answer "No" to fifty JohnsThan answer "Yes" to you."There was another moment or two, but nothing so memorable in the -when I'm gone- and -life is vanity, true living is in heaven- verses that follow.
    • 4/5
      Perhaps an ideal children's story — scary, but comes out right in the end. A bit moralistic, but certainly works on a child's imagination.
    • 4/5
      When I was a teenager I loved Christina Rossetti poems. Shortly after we moved back to California in the early 90’s I picked up this book but never got around to reading it. I stumbled across it a few days ago and decided this would be a good time to get it off my TBR pile. This is a Dover edition of the first book Rossetti published. I decided to save Goblin Market until last because it is quite long and I wanted to get back into her style before I tackled it. It was a wise decision. I’ve been reading a lot of 20th century poetry and at first it was a little difficult to get back into the rhythm of 19th century poetry-which, when I was a teenage I “specialized’ in! But once I got into the flow I once again became immersed in Rossetti’s world. Her poems are haunting and often sad. The introduction quotes Virginia Woolf as saying “Death, oblivion, and rest lap around your songs with their dark wave.” Her two main themes are sensual love and religious devotion. In her life she eventually renounced the first for the second. I now realize why I loved her so much back then. At sixteen I wanted to become a nun—and I wasn’t even Catholic. Even after all these years, I enjoyed these poems. Most were ones I either hadn’t ever read or have forgotten but I also encountered some “old friends.” I plan to look for more of her poems to see how she matured as a poet. My favorite poem of hers wasn’t in this book.

    Book preview

    Goblin Market and Other Poems - Christina Rossetti

    THE GOBLIN MARKET AND OTHER POEMS

    BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

    A Digireads.com Book

    Digireads.com Publishing

    Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4698-7

    EBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4729-8

    This edition copyright © 2013

    Please visit www.digireads.com

    CONTENTS

    From GOBLIN MARKET, AND OTHER POEMS (1862)

    GOBLIN MARKET

    DREAM LAND

    AT HOME

    A TRIAD

    COUSIN KATE

    SPRING

    A BIRTHDAY

    REMEMBER

    AFTER DEATH

    AN END

    SONG

    A SUMMER WISH

    AN APPLE GATHERING

    SONG

    MAUDE CLARE

    ECHO

    WINTER: MY SECRET

    ANOTHER SPRING

    'NO, THANK YOU, JOHN'

    MAY

    A PAUSE OF THOUGHT

    SONG

    SISTER MAUDE

    THE FIRST SPRING DAY

    THE CONVENT THRESHOLD

    UP-HILL

    'A BRUISED REED SHALL HE NOT BREAK'

    A BETTER RESURRECTION

    THE THREE ENEMIES

    THE ONE CERTAINTY

    SWEET DEATH

    THE WORLD

    From THE PRINCE'S PROGRESS, AND OTHER POEMS (1866)

    SPRING QUIET

    A PORTRAIT

    DREAM-LOVE

    TWICE

    ONE DAY

    ON THE WING (A DREAM)

    BEAUTY IS VAIN

    WHAT WOULD I GIVE?

    THE BOURNE

    MEMORY

    SHALL I FORGET?

    VANITY OF VANITIES

    L. E. L.

    LIFE AND DEATH

    GROWN AND FLOWN

    DESPISED AND REJECTED

    THE LOWEST PLACE

    From GOBLIN MARKET, THE PRINCE'S PROGRESS AND OTHER POEMS (1875)

    CONSIDER

    A SMILE AND A SIGH

    PARADISE: IN A DREAM

    From NEW POEMS, HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED OR UNCOLLECTED (1896)

    SLEEPING AT LAST

    From GOBLIN MARKET, AND OTHER POEMS (1862)

    GOBLIN MARKET

    Morning and evening

    Maids heard the goblins cry:

    'Come buy our orchard fruits,

    Come buy, come buy:

    Apples and quinces,

    Lemons and oranges,

    Plump unpecked cherries,

    Melons and raspberries,

    Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,

    Swart-headed mulberries,

    Wild free-born cranberries,

    Crab-apples, dewberries,

    Pine-apples, blackberries,

    Apricots, strawberries;—

    All ripe together

    In summer weather,—

    Morns that pass by,

    Fair eves that fly;

    Come buy, come buy:

    Our grapes fresh from the vine,

    Pomegranates full and fine,

    Dates and sharp bullaces,

    Rare pears and greengages,

    Damsons and bilberries,

    Taste them and try:

    Currants and gooseberries,

    Bright-fire-like barberries,

    Figs to fill your mouth,

    Citrons from the South,

    Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;

    Come buy, come buy.'

    Evening by evening

    Among the brookside rushes,

    Laura bowed her head to hear,

    Lizzie veiled her blushes:

    Crouching close together

    In the cooling weather,

    With clasping arms and cautioning lips,

    With tingling cheeks and finger tips.

    'Lie close,' Laura said,

    Pricking up her golden head:

    'We must not look at goblin men,

    We must not buy their fruits:

    Who knows upon what soil they fed

    Their hungry thirsty roots?'

    'Come buy,' call the goblins

    Hobbling down the glen.

    'Oh,' cried Lizzie, 'Laura, Laura,

    You should not peep at goblin men.'

    Lizzie covered up her eyes,

    Covered close lest they should look;

    Laura reared her glossy head,

    And whispered like the restless brook:

    'Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,

    Down the glen tramp little men.

    One hauls a basket,

    One bears a plate,

    One lugs a golden dish

    Of many pounds weight.

    How fair the vine must grow

    Whose grapes are so luscious;

    How warm the wind must blow

    Through those fruit bushes.'

    'No,' said Lizzie, 'No, no, no;

    Their offers should not charm us,

    Their evil gifts would harm us.'

    She thrust a dimpled finger

    In each ear, shut eyes and ran:

    Curious Laura chose to linger

    Wondering at each merchant man.

    One had a cat's face,

    One whisked a tail,

    One tramped at a rat's pace,

    One crawled like a snail,

    One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,

    One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.

    She heard a voice like voice of doves

    Cooing all together:

    They sounded kind and full of loves

    In the pleasant weather.

    Laura stretched her gleaming neck

    Like a rush-imbedded swan,

    Like a lily from the beck,

    Like a moonlit poplar branch,

    Like a vessel at the launch

    When its last restraint is gone.

    Backwards up the mossy glen

    Turned and trooped the goblin men,

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