Christina Rossetti

Good Friday (Rossetti)

Stone vs. sheep

Biblical stones are hard-hearted, unresponsive. Sheep follow their shepherd. She's asking if she's spiritually dead.

Am I a stone and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood's slow loss

Counting drops

The clinical precision—'number drop by drop'—is the problem. She's observing the crucifixion like a scientist instead of mourning.

And yet not weep?

Gospel witnesses

Specific references: the women at the cross (Luke 23:27), Peter's denial and tears (Luke 22:62), the repentant thief (Luke 23:40-43). Everyone else responded.

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in the starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon —
I, only I.
Yet give not o'er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more,
And smite a rock.

Moses striking rock

Exodus 17:6—Moses struck a rock and water poured out. She's asking Christ to strike her stone heart until tears flow.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Catalog of Witnesses

Rossetti builds her case through biblical specifics. The women who lamented are from Luke 23:27 ("daughters of Jerusalem"). Peter weeping bitterly is Luke 22:62, right after his third denial. The moved thief is the one crucified beside Christ who repented (Luke 23:40-43). Even nature responded—the darkness at noon is from Matthew 27:45, when "darkness came over all the land" during the crucifixion.

The repetition of "Not so" creates a prosecutorial rhythm. She's listing witnesses against herself. Everyone and everything responded to the crucifixion—humans, a criminal, the sun and moon—except her. The isolation of "I, only I" at the end of stanza three is devastating. She's alone in her spiritual numbness.

The phrase "exceeding grief" is worth noticing. It's archaic even for Rossetti (writing in 1862), deliberately biblical in tone. She's using the language of the King James Bible to measure herself against its standards—and finding herself wanting.

The Rock That Needs Breaking

The final stanza pivots on Exodus 17:6, where God tells Moses: "thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it." Rossetti is the rock—hard, dry, unable to weep. She's asking Christ to do to her what Moses did to the stone: strike it until water flows.

The "turn and look once more" echoes Peter's story. In Luke 22:61, after Peter's denial, "the Lord turned and looked at Peter"—and then Peter wept. Rossetti wants that transforming look, that breaking moment. She's asking to be broken open into proper grief.

Rossetti wrote this during her intense Anglo-Catholic phase, practicing severe religious devotion. Her devotional poems often focus on spiritual inadequacy—the gap between what she should feel and what she does feel. This isn't metaphorical. She genuinely worried about her capacity for religious emotion, her ability to respond to Christ's sacrifice. The poem is a prayer for the gift of tears, for the breaking of her own stony heart.