Tired
Christina Rossetti’s “Up-Hill”: does the road wind up-hill all the way?
For when the hill is real and you want to know there’s a rest at the end.
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. … 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.
In plain words
Two voices: a traveller asking, and someone who knows the road answering. The answers are honest: yes, uphill the whole way, yes, all day. Then comes the tired person’s real question, whether there will be somewhere to rest, and the last stanza says yes, beds for all who come. The poem never pretends the hill is short. It only promises the rest is real.
Sit with this line → A few quiet exchanges about what it stirs in you.
Worth knowing
Usually read as a poem about life’s journey and what waits at the end. It works just as well about an ordinary, hard week. The middle two stanzas are left out here.
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