Promises Like Pie-Crust
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

English poet. Her collections of verse include Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), The Prince's Progress and Other Poems (1866) and A Pageant and Other Poems (1881), and 'A Birthday', 'Remember', 'Uphill' and the Christmas carol 'In the Bleak Mid-Winter'. She also wrote Sing-song, a Nursery Rhyme Book (1862) for children, which was illustrated by Arthur Hughes. Rossetti's main concern was her religious poetry, and she had great lyrical gifts. She was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement, which included her brothers D.G. and W.M. Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris.

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Promises Like Pie-Crust
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Promise me no promises,
So will I not promise you:
Keep we both our liberties,
Never false and never true:
Let us hold the die uncast,
Free to come as free to go:
For I cannot know your past,
And of mine what can you know?

You, so warm, may once have been
Warmer towards another one:
I, so cold, may once have seen
Sunlight, once have felt the sun:
Who shall show us if it was
Thus indeed in time of old?
Fades the image from the glass,
And the fortune is not told.

If you promised, you might grieve
For lost liberty again:
If I promised, I believe
I should fret to break the chain.
Let us be the friends we were,
Nothing more but nothing less:
Many thrive on frugal fare
Who would perish of excess.

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Promises Like Pie-Crust by Christina Georgina Rossetti