One of my 2022 reading goals was to read a work of poetry by Christina Rosetti. In various works of literature, I have come across references to her works and always appreciated them. And who can deny the beauty of the Christmas Carol In a Bleak Midwinter? And while I was surprised by the fantasy poem the Goblin Market, and enjoyed it, my favorite piece I discovered in the book I read was “A Discovery.”
“I thought your search was over.”-”So I thought.”-
“But you are seeking still.”-”Yes, even so:
Still seeking in mine own despite below
That which in Heaven alone is found unsought;
Still spending for that thing which is not bought.”-
“Then chase no more this shifting empty show.”-
“Amen: so bid a drowning man forego
The straw he clutches; will he so be taught?
You have a home where peace broods like a dove
Screened from the weary world’s loud discontent,
You have home here, you wait for home above:
I must unlearn the pleasant ways I went,
Must learn another hope, another love,
And sigh indeed for home in banishment.”–
The poem imagines a conversation between two people. One of them thought they’d found it (God, faith, salvation, contentment) but it turns out they haven’t and so they are seeking it still. But they recognize their search is futile. The reason is they are seeking in the things of the world that which they can only find in God. Yet recognizes the tremendous fear of death to self.
Several things really speak to me in this poem:
“still spending for that thing which is not bought.” I’m currently reading through another work by Capon and he, in typical Capon fashion, needles the idea that we seem married to the desire to earn God’s favor. Rosetti paints the picture of a person who is spending countless money trying to purchase something which isn’t for sale in the first place.
How many of us treat God’s favor as something which, if we throw enough of something (good works?) at it, can be purchased?
Unfortunately, that isn’t the way the real world (not this shadow that we live in) works. And so we must “unlearn these pleasant ways” and instead we “must learn another hope, another love, and sigh indeed for home in banishment.”
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