Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
All ripe together
In summer weather,—
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.”
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bow’d her head to hear,
Lizzie veil’d her blushes;
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger tips.
“Lie close,” Laura said, pricking up her ears;
“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
“Come buy,” call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.
“O,” cried Lizzie, “Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men.”
Lizzie cover’d up her eyes,
Cover’d close lest they should look;
Laura rear’d her glossy head,
And whisper’d like the restless brook:
“Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen tramp little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes!”
“No,” said Lizzie: “No, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us.”
She thrust a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One had a cat’s face,
One whisk’d a tail,
One tramp’d at a rat’s pace,
One crawl’d like a snail,
One like a wombat prowl’d obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.
She heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.
Laura stretch’d her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
Like a vessel at the launch
When its last restraint is gone.
Backwards up the mossy glen
Turn’d and troop’d the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
“Come buy, come buy.”
When they reach’d where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other,
Brother with queer brother;
Signalling each other,
Brother with sly brother.
One set his basket down,
One rear’d his plate;
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town);
One heav’d the golden weight
Of dish and fruit to offer her:
“Come buy, come buy,” was still their cry.
Laura stared but did not stir,
Long’d but had no money;
The whisk-tail’d merchant bade her taste
In tones as smooth as honey;
The cat-faced purr’d,
The rat-faced spoke a word
Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;
One parrot-voiced and jolly
Cried “Pretty Goblin” still for “Pretty Polly”;
—”One lump of sugar, only”
—”One slice of bread”
—”One drop of honey
From off the comb.”
She gave them no coin;
Her hair grew thin and gray;
She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn
To swift decay and burn
Her fire away.
She no more swept the house,
Tended the fowls or cows,
Fetch’d honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,
Brought water from the brook:
But sat down listless in the chimney nook
And would not eat.
Tender Lizzie could not bear
To watch her sister’s cankerous care,
Yet not to share.
She night and morning
Caught the goblins’ cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy.”
—”If you will not eat with me,
I will bring you plums to tea:
Plump, unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,”—
She laugh’d in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syrup’d all her face,
And run and drip, and run and drip—
While tears began to race.
At last the evil people,
Worn out by her resisting,
Flung back her penny, kick’d their fruit
Along whichever road they took,
Not leaving root or stone or shoot;
Some writh’d into the ground,
Some div’d into the brook
With ring and ripple.
Lizzie went her way alone,
And left no more at fall of night
To parley with their hustling kind
Between the tender moon and the return of light.
She cried “Laura,” up the garden,
“Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me:
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men.”
Laura started from her chair,
Flung her arms up in the air,
Clutch’d her hair:
“Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted
For my sake the fruit forbidden?
Must your light like mine be hidden,
Your young life like mine be wasted,
Undone in mine undoing,
And ruin’d in my ruin,
Thirsty, canker’d, goblin-ridden?”
She clung about her sister,
Kiss’d and kiss’d and kiss’d her:
Tears once again
Refresh’d her shrunken eyes,
Dropping like rain
After long sultry drouth;
Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,
She tasted fruit forbidden;
She knew not was it night or day
As she turn’d cold and golden.
Life out of death:
“Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.”
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices;
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me.”
She laugh’d in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syrup’d all her face,
And how it trickled down her chin
And ran in little rivers,
And then ensued a tender calm
That made her like a lily in a flood,
Or like a rock of blue-vein’d stone
Wash’d by the foamy waters.
Days, weeks, months, years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own;
Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime—
How she met the goblin men long ago,
Trod in the golden time;
Her hair grew thin and gray;
Her life droop’d like a flower;
But then her sister, wise and brave,
Saved her by a steadfast power.
“For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.”
Originally published in Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862) by Christina Rossetti. Public domain.
Analysis
“Goblin Market” is one of the most intricate and symbolically rich poems of the Victorian era. On its surface, it resembles a fairy tale about two sisters tempted by goblin merchants, but beneath its musical charm lies a complex moral and psychological drama. Christina Rossetti intertwines sensual imagery, Christian allegory, and early feminist themes to explore desire, temptation, and redemption.
The poem’s opening lines draw readers into a marketplace alive with temptation. The goblins’ chant—“Come buy, come buy”—mimics both the rhythm of commerce and the language of seduction. Their fruits, dazzling and forbidden, evoke the allure of sin and material pleasure. Laura’s indulgence represents a fall from innocence, while Lizzie’s steadfast resistance turns her into a figure of salvation. Through Lizzie’s courage and self-sacrifice, Rossetti reimagines redemption not as divine intervention but as an act of sisterly love and endurance.
The language of the poem is lush and rhythmic, its repetition and musicality echoing the oral storytelling traditions of myth and fable. Rossetti’s vivid catalogues of fruits and textures heighten the sensuousness of the poem, inviting the reader to experience the same temptation that ensnares Laura. Yet, beneath this luxuriant surface lies a sharp moral awareness. The goblins’ market is a world where women are both buyers and commodities, where pleasure carries a hidden cost—a reflection of Victorian anxieties about female virtue, sexuality, and economic dependence.
At its heart, “Goblin Market” celebrates the redemptive power of sisterhood. In contrast to traditional patriarchal salvation narratives, Rossetti presents female solidarity as the ultimate moral strength. Lizzie’s rescue of Laura transforms the tale into a spiritual allegory of love conquering corruption. The final stanza, in which the sisters recall their trials to their own children, seals the poem as a lesson in endurance, compassion, and moral courage.
Today, the poem continues to fascinate scholars and readers alike. It can be read simultaneously as a religious allegory, a proto-feminist parable, a critique of consumer culture, and a celebration of women’s emotional resilience. Through its layered symbolism and lyrical beauty, “Goblin Market” endures as one of Rossetti’s greatest achievements—a poem where the language of temptation becomes the very medium of redemption.