At the beginning of the poem, Rossetti says "Does the road wind up-hill all the way?/ Yes, to the very end" (1-2). I believe that in these two lines, Rossetti expresses the distress she is feeling with life in general and how she cannot believe it just keeps going on and on. She uses the road as a symbol for the journey of life and she cannot believe it is windy, or difficult the whole way up the hill, or through the path of life.

She goes on to say "Will the day's journey take the whole long day?/ From morn to night my friend" (3-4). In these lines, she is in this dialect with someone and is complaining that the journey of life takes the "whole long day," or in other words, she is in awe that it will take her entire life. In saying this, she is expressing how stressful and difficult she thinks of the journey of life and cannot believe she will have to go through the entire process to get to a peaceful place. I believe the person means from birth to death by their response. I think of the person talking to her as some short little elf-eared man for some reason. I picture him nicer than the men from "Goblin Market," but I think I still picture him as a goblin man because he the one that is giving her these answers that are difficult to hear, but is also telling her how to get to a better place.

"But is there for the night a resting place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss them" (5-8).
Rossetti is searching for this place of what is probably heaven, to get her out of the darkness, seeking shelter as a refuge. Then she asks how she will ever find it, if it is in this dark, unknown place. I think in this part, she is asking how she will know when it is her time to leave this earth. The face that she is asking all these questions about death contributes to the idea that she is looking for peace