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Christina Rossetti · Goblin Market and Other Poems

Poem 120 of 137 · Book I

A Smile and a Sigh

— ✻ —

(Macmillan's Magazine, May 1868.)

A smile because the nights are short!
And every morning brings such pleasure
Of sweet love-making, harmless sport:
Love, that makes and finds its treasure;
Love, treasure without measure.

A sigh because the days are long!
Long long these days that pass in sighing,
A burden saddens every song:
While time lags who should be flying,
We live who would be dying.

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