For, A Look Into Lesser Known Poets, A Series, (3rd.) Poet, Christina Rossetti - Robert Lindley's Blog

For, A Look Into Lesser Known Poets, A Series, (3rd.) Poet, Christina Rossetti

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/christina-rossetti

Christina Rossetti
1830–1894
Image of Christina Rossetti.
Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo
Poet Christina Rossetti was born in 1830, the youngest child in an extraordinarily gifted family. Her father, the Italian poet and political exile Gabriele Rossetti, immigrated to England in 1824 and established a career as a Dante scholar and teacher of Italian in London. He married the half-English, half-Italian Frances Polidori in 1826, and they had four children in quick succession: Maria Francesca in 1827, Gabriel Charles Dante (famous under the name Dante Gabriel but always called Gabriel by family members) in 1828, William Michael in 1829, and Christina Georgina on 5 December 1830. In 1831 Gabriele Rossetti was appointed to the chair of Italian at the newly opened King’s College. The children received their earliest education, and Maria and Christina all of theirs, from their mother, who had been trained as a governess and was committed to cultivating intellectual excellence in her family. Certainly this ambition was satisfied: Maria was the author of a respected study of Dante, as well as books on religious instruction and Italian grammar and translation; Dante Gabriel distinguished himself as one of the foremost poets and painters of his era; and William was a prolific art and literary critic, editor, and memoirist of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Christina became one of the Victorian age’s finest poets. She was the author of numerous books of poetry, including Goblin Market and other Poems (1862), The Prince’s Progress (1866), A Pageant (1881), and The Face of the Deep (1882).

Rossetti’s poetry has never disappeared from view. Critical interest in Rossetti’s poetry swelled in the final decades of the twentieth century, a resurgence largely impelled by the emergence of feminist criticism; much of this commentary focuses on gender issues in her poetry and on Rossetti as a woman poet. In Rossetti’s lifetime opinion was divided over whether she or Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the greatest female poet of the era; in any case, after Browning’s death in 1861 readers and critics saw Rossetti as the older poet’s rightful successor. The two poets achieved different kinds of excellence, as is evident in Dante Gabriel Rossetti‘s comment on his sister, quoted by William Sharp in The Atlantic Monthly (June 1895): “She is the finest woman-poet since Mrs. Browning, by a long way; and in artless art, if not in intellectual impulse, is greatly Mrs. Browning’s superior.” Readers have generally considered Rossetti’s poetry less intellectual, less political, and less varied than Browning’s; conversely, they have acknowledged Rossetti as having the greater lyric gift, with her poetry displaying a perfection of diction, tone, and form under the guise of utter simplicity.

Rossetti’s childhood was exceptionally happy, characterized by affectionate parental care and the creative companionship of older siblings. In temperament she was most like her brother Dante Gabriel: their father called the pair the “two storms” of the family in comparison to the “two calms,” Maria and William. Christina was given to tantrums and fractious behavior, and she fought hard to subdue this passionate temper. Years later, counseling a niece subject to similar outbursts, the mature Christina looked back on the fire now stifled: “You must not imagine, my dear girl, that your Aunt was always the calm and sedate person you now behold. I, too, had a very passionate temper; but I learnt to control it. On one occasion, being rebuked by my dear Mother for some fault, I seized upon a pair of scissors, and ripped up my arm to vent my wrath. I have learnt since to control my feelings—and no doubt you will!” Self-control was, indeed, achieved—perhaps too much so. In his posthumous memoir of his sister that prefaces The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti (1904) William laments the thwarting of her high spirits: “In innate character she was vivacious, and open to pleasurable impressions; and, during her girlhood, one might readily have supposed that she would develop into a woman of expansive heart, fond of society and diversions, and taking a part in them of more than average brilliancy. What came to pass was of course quite the contrary.” As an adult Christina Rossetti was considered by many to be overscrupulous and excessively restrained.pleasures, renunciation, individual unworthiness, and the perfection of >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.....

much, much more at link given above...(RJL)
Three examples of her poetry given below...(RJL)

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https://allpoetry.com/A-Better-Ressurection

(1.)

A Better Resurrection
              BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
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.
© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

(2.)
An Echo from Willowood
“Oh Ye, All Ye That Walk in Willowwood”

 
Two gaz’d into a pool, he gaz’d and she,  
Not hand in hand, yet heart in heart, I think,  
Pale and reluctant on the water’s brink  
AS on the brink of parting which must be.  
Each eyed the other’s aspect, she and he,          
Each felt one hungering heart leap up and sink,  
Each tasted bitterness which both must drink,  
There on the brink of life’s dividing sea.  
Lilies upon the surface, deep below  
Two wistful faces craving each for each,          
Resolute and reluctant without speech:—  
A sudden ripple made the faces flow  
One moment join’d, to vanish out of reach:  
So these hearts join’d, and ah! were parted so.
© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes   

(3.)

Echo
               BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
Remember
Remember me when I am gone away,
        Gone far away into the silent land;
        When you can no more hold me by the hand,
    Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
    Remember me when no more day by day
        You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
        Only remember me; you understand
    It will be late to counsel then or pray.
    Yet if you should forget me for a while
      And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
      For if the darkness and corruption leave
      A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
  Better by far you should forget and smile
      Than that you should remember and be sad.
© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes   
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3rd link on , CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

https://poets.org/poet/christina-rossetti

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I That Once Rose To Greet Dawn's Sweetest Voice

I, who once rose to greet dawn's sweetest voice
and with joys of life, made loving my choice
while in searching for romance and its gems
fiery rites of passion opened rose stems.

Moonlit skies, quenched heavy gasping aches
Always searching, playing for higher stakes!

I, who saw not blindness within my soul
felt only glory, instead of hurt's toll
A prisoner bound by unbreakable chains
I was a ghost, denying lonely pains.

Moonlit skies, quenched heavy gasping aches
Always searching, playing for higher stakes!

I, who walked along crooked paths with glee
did not admit harm done, to them or me.
Yes, a young rascal, seeking ever more
thus merciless, the bloody holes I tore.

Moonlit skies, quenching heavy gasping aches
Always searching, playing for higher stakes!

I, who thought life was meant for pleasure found
shut out truth's light and loud crying sounds.
Lost soul, racing into that coming wrath
playing wicked odds, and failing at math.

Moonlit skies, quenching heavy gasping aches
Always searching, playing for higher stakes!

I, who finally paid my costly dues
was imprisoned in dark, hard hitting blues.
Victim of my own making, blinded sight
cast into ebon fields of blackest blight.

No longer skies, of heavy gasping aches
No more searching, playing for higher stakes!

Robert J. Lindley, 3-21-2020
Rhyme, ( How Oft Life Teaches Us Those Much Needed Lessons )
Tribute poem composed for third poet, ( Christina Rossetti )
in my, --  "Lesser Known Poets Series".