UP-HILL : A POEM BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

                        UP-HILL : A POEM BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

                        Christina Georgina Rossetti was born on 5^th December 1830 in London.  She died an invalid maiden on 29^th December 1894. Her siblings were great poets like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti and Maria Francesca Rossetti. Her father Gabriele Rossetti was also a poet and  her mother Frances Polidori was a scholar of sorts.

                          

                        Though not unromantic, Christina was predominantly a devotional poet and believed that it is dangerous to fall a prey to earthly temptations.  This is ,indeed, the soul of her  famous poem “Goblin Market”.

                         

According to a most  acceptable judgement , Christina was a great Anglican poet who expressed simple thoughts in simple language. At the same time, she was an inspired genius, in whom an exquisite sense of art was charged by a throbbing passion. Sometimes she sings of love, sometimes of religion; but always with pathetic loveliness.  

 

What follows is the full text of “UP-HILL” with a brief interpretation:

 

“Does the road wind up-hill all the way?

                                    Yes, to the very end.

Will the day’s journey take the whole  long day?

From morn to night, my friend.

                       

                        But is there for the night a resting place?

                                    A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.

                        May not the darkness hide it from my face?

                                    You cannot miss the inn.

 

                        Shall I meet other wayfarers at night ?

                                    Those who have gone before.

                        Then must  I knock, or call when just in sight?

                        They will not keep you standing at the door.

 

                        Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?

                                    Of labour you will find the sum.

                        Will there be beds for me and all who seek?

                                    Yes, beds or all who come.”

           

Up-Hill is one of the most beautiful poems written by Christina Rossetti. Its theme has universal appeal. The poem is a dialogue between an ignorant traveller and a knowledgeable guide. The dialogue happens on a road, symbolically the road of life. The traveller is a new journeyman. Fortunately, he gets an authentic guide who answers all his vital questions. However, the road is not an ordinary road and the journey is not an ordinary journey.  It is a journey of a passionate spiritual seeker, not on a level road, but on the one which is up-hill, immensely difficult, dangerous and tiresome.  It is also quite lonely. The traveller can find company only when he reaches the top of the hill where earlier travellers are already resting in an inn.  These former travellers are not dormant, but fully awake, and immediately notice a new comer for whom they always keep the door  open.

           

The guide also tells the traveller that his tiresome journey will end in comfort, in a resting place, and in the company of those who have reached the hill before him. In other words , his spiritual labour will not go unrewarded.  However, it will  not be according to a random yardstick. Its measure will be in proportion to the spiritual effort that he has put in.

 

Look at the traveller’s question:

              

“Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?”

 

And the answer:

 

“Of labour you will find the sum.”

 

Isn’t it a fair game? In the material world as also in the spiritual one, man the harvester, reaps only  what he sows and reaps only as much as he sows

 

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1^st July 2021                                                                                        G. R. Kanwal