Christina Rossetti*

Christina Rossetti (1830—1894) is one of the Victorian age’s most significant poets. Besides poetry she also wrote fiction and devotional reflections. From 1870 to 1872 she was dangerously and violently ill with Grave’s Disease, which caused her hair to fall out, and for her to lose consciousness.

After she recovered, Rossetti published six volumes of devotional prose. According to the Poetry Foundation: “In these devotional writings readers can find explicit statements of themes treated in the poetry of previous decades, and in many instances Rossetti discusses natural and biblical images, virtually glossing favorite poetic symbols.” In the first of these books Annus Domini: A Prayer for Each Day of the Year, Founded on a Text of Holy Scripture (1874) she shared 366 meditations, each of which includes a passage from scripture followed by a collect beginning with an invocation to Christ.”

In 1892 Rossetti published her book The Face of the Deep — an in-depth meditation on the Book of Revelation which included many poems. The following poem is her response to the opening verses of Revelation 5:
---“Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll
---with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw
---a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to break
---the seals and open the scroll?’”

None Other Lamb

None other Lamb, none other Name,
None other hope in Heav’n or earth or sea,
None other hiding place from guilt and shame,
None beside Thee!

My faith burns low, my hope burns low;
Only my heart’s desire cries out in me
By the deep thunder of its want and woe,
Cries out to Thee.

Lord, Thou art Life, though I be dead;
Love’s fire Thou art, however cold I be:
Nor Heav’n have I, nor place to lay my head,
Nor home, but Thee.

*This is the fifth Kingdom Poets post about Christina Rossetti: first post, second post, third post, fourth post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of six poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), plus three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is now available from Paraclete Press.

Laurence Housman

Laurence Housman (1865—1959) is an English playwright, writer and illustrator, and the younger brother of the better-known poet A.E. Housman. He worked for several London publishers as an illustrator on such books as Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market (1893), and his sister’s novella The Were-Wolf (1896). As a writer he is best known for his plays, beginning with the Nativity play Bethlehem (1902). Along with his sister, Clemence Houseman, he became active in the suffrage movement.

He caught my attention as a poet to include in this blog due to his book Spikenard: A Book of Devotional Love-Poems (Grant Richards, 1898), and how frequently in the other things he wrote, his subject matter related to Biblical themes.

Housman was raised in an Anglican household, and became quite interested in transitioning his church affiliation from Anglican to Catholic when in his early thirties, going so far as to attend a Catholic retreat that culminated in an Easter Sunday Mass, which Housman, in his hesitance, only observed. He said,
-----“A week later I went to Paris on journalistic work for the Manchester
-----Guardian and when I saw, in some of the lovely French churches, the
-----tawdry statues, emblems, and ornaments with which modern
-----Catholicism allows its altars to be desecrated, I began to be glad of
-----my escape: unreasonably glad, perhaps, but I cannot dissociate false
-----art from false worship. If there be a Personal God, the beauty they
-----produce and cherish is for me the surest sign that His worshippers
-----have the truth in them: if beauty is betrayed, God is betrayed also.
-----And so the foolish vulgarity of modern Roman Catholic art was a
-----decisive aid to my escape from St. Peter's net an escape for which
-----I became more and more thankful as the years went on.”

Not that aesthetic concerns are unimportant, but this subjective (art-based rather than theological) argument, and the phrase “If there be a Personal God,” causes me to question the depth of Housman’s faith, which is borne out in some other details of his life. Even so, his poetry is well worth considering.

The following poem is the title piece from his 1898 collection, Spikenard.

Spikenard

As one who came with ointments sweet,
Abettors to her fleshly guilt,
And brake and poured them at Thy Feet,
And Worshipped Thee with spikenard spilt:
So from a body full of blame,
And tongue too deeply versed in shame,
Do I pour speech upon Thy Name.
O Thou, if tongue may yet beseech,
Near to Thine awful Feet let reach
This broken spikenard of my speech!

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of six poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), plus three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is now available from Paraclete Press.

Christina Rossetti*

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830—1894) is one of the Victorian era’s finest poets. Born in England, into an artistic family, the youngest daughter of an Italian refugee, poet and scholar ― she was educated at home by her mother, who cultivated intellectual and artistic excellence in her children, as well as an abiding faith.

Christina Rossetti had wanted to join the work of Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War, but instead served as a visiting parish nurse to the poor; she later volunteered a good deal of her time at the St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary in Highgate, a charitable institution for the reclamation of fallen women.

In 1861, her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti sent her now famous poem “Goblin Market” to the art critic John Ruskin with the hope that he would recommend it for publication. Ruskin believed the poem was “unpublishable” for reasons which now demonstrate he had misjudged both the public and the value of Christina’s originality. Despite this, her poems began to find publication, and her book Goblin Market and Other Poems was published by Macmillan in 1862, to critical acclaim.

In 1874 she began publishing her books of devotional prose, through which can be seen explicitly much of what she expressed, almost cryptically, through the concise style of her poems. In her discussions of natural and biblical images, she expounds her symbolic view of the world.

The final poetry collection Rossetti had published in her lifetime, Verses (1893), consists of 331 poems of faith.

Before The Paling Of The Stars

Before the paling of the stars,
Before the winter morn,
Before the earliest cockcrow
Jesus Christ was born:
Born in a stable,
Cradled in a manger,
In the world His hands had made
Born a stranger.

Priest and king lay fast asleep
In Jerusalem,
Young and old lay fast asleep
In crowded Bethlehem:
Saint and Angel, ox and ass,
Kept a watch together,
Before the Christmas daybreak
In the winter weather.

Jesus on His Mother's breast
In the stable cold,
Spotless Lamb of God was He,
Shepherd of the fold:
Let us kneel with Mary maid,
With Joseph bent and hoary,
With Saint and Angel, ox and ass,
To hail the King of Glory.

*This is the fourth Kingdom Poets post about Christina Rossetti: first post, second post, third post, fifth post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock.

Diane Tucker

Diane Tucker is a Vancouver poet. She has three full-length poetry collections: God on His Haunches (Nightwood Editions, 1996), Bright Scarves of Hours (Palimpsest, 2007) and Bonsai Love (Harbour Publishing, 2014). She has also published a YA novel, His Sweet Favour (Thistledown, 2009). In 2013 her first stage play, Here Breaks the Heart: The Loves of Christina Rossetti, was produced by Fire Exit Theatre in Calgary.

She is one of the poet-organizers of Vancouver’s Dead Poets Reading Series — literally presenting the work of poets that are no longer around to read their own work.

God on his haunches

such an appalling picture
God on his haunches
like a bird watcher, waiting
for what he knows must happen
but will for the world neither impede nor hurry on
waiting for the crunch of the beak through the egg
waiting for the infusion of blue through the bud
God the time-lapse photographer

such a terrifying picture
that the Timeless One should savour time
should know the necessity of every second
should want to plunge me
into the deeps of every moment
drown me in the glory of that which has been made
raise me, sodden, into uncreated light
gleaming in the sun like a dolphin's back

a barbed baptism, the eternal end
reached only through fiery lungfuls of time
every second clotting the nostrils
each moment a coal ablaze in the throat

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Christina Rossetti*

Christina Rossetti (1830—1894) is one of the greatest Victorian female poets — perhaps only second to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Her first poetic triumph was the book Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862). She is also known for her children’s poems in Sing-Song (1872). She wrote six devotional studies, the last of which The Face of the Deep: A Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse (1892) featured Rossetti’s verse-by-verse reflections on the Book of Revelation, and includes more than two hundred poems.

In the early 1870s she became seriously ill with Graves’ Disease. After her recovery she dedicated much of her attention to writing devotional prose. These writings reveal much of how she viewed the world as symbolic of spiritual truths; they also demonstrate her Christocentric view of scripture.

When asked about her poetic influences she wrote, “If any one thing schooled me in the direction of poetry, it was perhaps the delightful idle liberty to prowl all alone about my grandfather’s cottage-grounds some thirty miles from London.” Despite her love of nature, she lived most of her adult life in London.

Good Friday

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,
And yet not weep?

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 a 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.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Christina Rossetti: first post, second post, fourth post, fifth post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828—1882) is a painter and poet who was born in London to Italian expatriate parents. He is only one of the Rossettis to have left his mark: His father was renown as a Dante scholar, his brother William Michael Rossetti was an influential art critic, and his sister Christina Georgina Rossetti is one of the leading poets of the nineteenth century.

In 1848, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and some friends founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of British artists who valued "truth to nature" in painting through attention to minute details, and symbolic imagery.

In 1861 he achieved success with his book of translations The Early Italian Poets. When his young wife died in 1862, in his grief, he had the only complete manuscript of his own poetry buried with her. In 1869, they were retrieved from Highgate Cemetery

His Sonnet sequence, "The House of Life", from Ballads and Sonnets (1881) is considered by some to be his finest poetic achievement.

Sacramental Hymn

On a fair Sabbath day, when His banquet is spread,
It is pleasant to feast with my Lord:
His stewards stand robed at the foot and the head
Of the soul-filling, life-giving board.
All the guests here had burthens; but by the King's grant
We left them behind when we came;
The burthen of wealth and the burthen of want,
And even the burthen of shame.
And oh, when we take them again at the gate,
Though still we must bear them awhile,
Much smaller they'll seem in the lane that grows strait,
And much lighter to lift at the stile.
For that which is in us is life to the heart,
Is dew to the soles of the feet,
Fresh strength to the loins, giving ease from their smart,
Warmth in frost, and a breeze in the heat.
No feast where the belly alone hath its fill,—
He gives me His body and blood;
The blood and the body (I'll think of it still)
Of my Lord, which is Christ, which is God.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

Christina Rossetti*

Christina Rossetti (1830—1894) is one of the best-known English poets of the nineteenth century. Her most famous collection is Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862). Her work became somewhat neglected with the rise of modernism in the early twentieth century, but gained a resurgence by the 1970s. She is said to have been a significant influence on Gerard Manley Hopkins, Elizabeth Jennings and Philip Larkin, among others.

In 1871 she was diagnosed with Graves' Disease, which she bravely endured with the help of her strong faith. She continued publishing poetry at this point, including A Pageant and Other Poems (1881), but primarily focused on devotional prose writing. She was considered the obvious candidate to succeed Alfred, Lord Tennyson as poet laureate — but she developed cancer in 1891, which eventually took her life.

Easter Monday

Out in the rain a world is growing green,
--On half the trees quick buds are seen
----Where glued-up buds have been.
Out in the rain God's Acre stretches green,
--Its harvest quick tho' still unseen:
----For there the Life hath been.

If Christ hath died His brethren well may die,
--Sing in the gate of death, lay by
----This life without a sigh:
For Christ hath died and good it is to die;
--To sleep whenso He lays us by,
----Then wake without a sigh.

Yea, Christ hath died, yea, Christ is risen again:
--Wherefore both life and death grow plain
----To us who wax and wane;
For Christ Who rose shall die no more again:
--Amen: till He makes all things plain
----Let us wax on and wane.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Christina Rossetti: first post, third post, fourth post, fifth post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

John Keble

John Keble (1792—1866) is an English poet and churchman who held the chair as Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1831 to 1841. He was a significant influence on such poets as Thomas Hardy, Christina Rossetti and Matthew Arnold. His 1827 book, The Christian Year, may have been the best-selling volume of verse in the nineteenth century. He was also influential as part of the Oxford Movement: a group of Anglicans who sought to revive fading High Church traditions. In 1870 Keble College, Oxford, was named in his honour.

Although changes in literary fashion have undermined Keble’s popularity today — Malcolm Guite, in the introduction to his 2012 sonnet collection Sounding the Seasons, acknowledges his debt to The Christian Year.

Blest Are the Pure In Heart

Blest are the pure in heart,
For they shall see our God;
The secret of the Lord is theirs;
Their soul is Christ’s abode.

The Lord, Who left the heavens
Our life and peace to bring,
To dwell in lowliness with men
Their Pattern and their King.

Still to the lowly soul
He doth Himself impart;
And for His dwelling and His throne
Chooseth the pure in heart.

Lord, we Thy presence seek;
May ours this blessing be;
Give us a pure and lowly heart,
A temple meet for Thee.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca

Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti (1830—1894) was a highly acclaimed poet in her day. She was born in London, the youngest daughter of Italian poet Gabriele Rossetti, who had come to England as a political refugee. Her mother was an evangelical Anglican, who educated her children at home; all of whom became well known. Christina’s brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, is famous as a poet and artist. Christina modelled for many of his paintings. She was a devout Anglican who broke off an engagement because her fiancé had become a Catholic, and later rejected another man she loved because she did not believe he was a Christian.

Her poetry, like that of many Victorians, fell from fashion in the early twentieth century. Today, in some circles she may be best known for the Christmas carol “In The Bleak Mid-Winter”, with music composed by Gustavus Holst. Her thought-provoking poem “Who Has Seen The Wind” became an inspiration for W.O. Mitchell’s novel of the same name (1947). By the 1970s a resurgence of interest in her work — due to its depth and subtlety — has re-established her distinction as one of the most significant female poets of the 19th century.

A Better Resurrection

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
--------My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
--------Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
--------No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
--------O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
--------My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
--------And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
--------No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
--------O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
--------A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
--------Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
--------Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
--------O Jesus, drink of me.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Christina Rossetti: second post, third post, fourth post, fifth post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca