Readings · Poems
Up-Hill
Christina Rossetti · 16 lines
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 that 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 that door.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.
About this reading
Christina Rossetti published this question-and-answer poem in Macmillan's Magazine in February 1861, and then in Goblin Market and Other Poems in 1862. Her brother William Michael Rossetti wrote that it was the first of her poems to draw marked attention. A traveler asks about the road and the night's lodging, and is answered.
The text of her own book of 1862. The poem first appeared in Macmillan's Magazine for February 1861, where the answer in the second stanza reads "A bed for when the slow dark hours begin." and the third question has a comma after "call".
- First published
- 1861
- Text from
- Goblin Market and Other Poems (London and Cambridge, 1862)
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