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Lyric Poem · Nature

From Sunset to Star Rise

by Christina Rossetti

Go from me, summer friends, and tarry not:

I am no summer friend, but wintry cold,

A silly sheep benighted from the fold,

A sluggard with a thorn-choked garden plot.

Take counsel, sever from my lot your lot,

Dwell in your pleasant places, hoard your gold;

Lest you with me should shiver on the wold,

Athirst and hungering on a barren spot.

For I have hedged me with a thorny hedge,

I live alone, I look to die alone:

Yet sometimes, when a wind sighs through the sedge,

Ghosts of my buried years, and friends come back,

My heart goes sighing after swallows flown

On sometime summer's unreturning track.

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Quick facts

Poem
From Sunset to Star Rise
Poet
Christina Rossetti
Length
14 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Nature, Summer, Friendship

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape
14 lines · one 14-line stanza
End rhyme
ABBAABCADEFGEG.
Line length
Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record
Christina Rossetti1830–1894
Source record
PoetryDBFrom Sunset to Star Rise by christina-rossetti, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision
Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record
Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint
SHA-256 bac94ed8cada78a7
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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