Spiritual Quote of the Day (Christina Rossetti, on Hope Awakening in Mid-Lent)

“At night wake hope. Poor soul, in such sore need
Of wakening and of girding up anew,
Hast thou that hope which fainting doth pursue?
No saint but hath pursued and hath been faint;
Bid love wake hope, for both thy steps shall speed,
Still faint yet still pursuing, O thou saint.”— English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), “Mid-Lent,” originally published in Verses (1893), republished in The Complete Poems, edited by R.W. Crump (2001)

This Day in Literary History (Christina Rossetti, Victorian Poet and Devotional Writer, Dies)

Dec. 29, 1894—Weakened by a recurrence of breast cancer on top of the ailments that plagued her for most of her life, poet and devotional writer Christina Rossetti died at age 64 in London.

Longtime readers of this blog know that I have frequently quoted from this Victorian frequently over the years—even though, unlike most other writers featured here, I discovered her on my own, well after my formal education ended.

When I did, I was astonished to discover that her Complete Poems—over 1,100, with approximately 900 published in her lifetime—ran to a hefty 1,300 pages.

As I considered her work and her life, I was struck by several similarities with Emily Dickinson. 

Even the most seemingly significant difference between the two might not be as substantial as it seems at first: Although Rossetti’s religious orientation was Anglo-Catholic while Dickinson rejected the Calvinism of her New England ancestors, both pondered in their work, for want of a better term, the ultimate—i.e., the presence (or lack of it) of God, the possibility of a hereafter.

It turns out that I am hardly the only reader who has drawn parallels between the two poets. Others have pointed out these similarities:

*Each was born in December 1830;

*Each developed a reputation as a spinster/recluse;

*Each, when meeting others, did so within their homes, usually facilitated by their charismatic older brother;

*Each devoted much of their work in their home to looking after their fathers;

*Each’s sexuality—or suppression of it—has fanned intense scholarly interest, despite the lack of much documentation to justify many conclusions;

*Each seems to have suffered from a mysterious ailment or set of them, which has also produced a small cottage industry of studies;

*Each wrote poetry in a deceptively simple style that cloaks complicated reflections on resignation, loss, and mortality.

The youngest child of Italian immigrants to Great Britain, Christina came from one of the most artistically accomplished families of her era. Her father was a poet and Dante scholar; sister Maria, books on Dante, religious instruction, and Italian grammar and translation; brother William, art and literary criticism; and brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the foremost poets and painters of his time, as a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

In her youth, Christina could beat her siblings in rapidly dashing off exquisite poems, and her striking looks—particularly the pale complexion, large eyes, and long uncurled hair (as seen in the attached image, created by her brother Dante)—made her one of the initial go-to models of the Pre-Raphaelites.

But in her mid-teens, she suffered a collapse in health. Over time, as she became more intensely devotional, she spurned at least two suitors who did not meet the spiritual standard she desired for a husband.

Much of her poetry inextricably intertwines Biblical imagery with her own spontaneous melodic voice—a style that reached a peak of sorts with the famous hymn, “In the Bleak Midwinter.” In art as in life, she was confessional and self-abasing to a fault.

But she was valued so much by contemporaries that she was a serious contender for the post of British poet laureate after the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. (Her rapidly declining health at this point closed off any chance of achieving that distinction.)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Christina Rossetti, on a Star and ‘The Song of the Angel Throng’)

“Beyond all clouds and all mistiness
I float in the strength of my loveliness;
And I move round the sun with a measured motion
In the blue expanse of the skyey ocean;
And I hear the song of the Angel throng
In a river of extasy flow along,
Without a pausing, without a hushing,
Like an everlasting fountain's gushing
That of its own will bubbles up
From a white untainted cup.”— English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), “The Song of the Star,” originally published in 1847, republished in The Complete Poems, edited by R.W. Crump (2001)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Christina Rossetti, on Love, ‘The Only Everlasting Duty’)

“Love is all happiness, love is all beauty,
Love is the crown of flaxen heads and hoary;
Love is the only everlasting duty;
And love is chronicled in endless story,
And kindles endless glory.”—English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), “Love” (1847), in The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti, edited by William Michael Rossetti (1906)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Poet Christina Rossetti, on the Summer Songs of the Skylark and Nightingale)

 

“When a mounting skylark sings
  In the sunlit summer morn,
I know that heaven is up on high,
  And on earth are fields of corn.
 
“But when a nightingale sings
  In the moonlit summer even,
I know not if earth is merely earth,
  Only that heaven is heaven.”— English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), “Sing-Song”—“mounting skylark,” in The Complete Poems, edited by R. W. Crump and Betty S. Flowers (2001)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Poet Christina Rossetti, on Finding ‘Hope in Grief’)

“Say not, vain this world's turmoil,
Vain its trouble and its toil,
All its hopes and fears are vain,
Long, unmitigated pain.
What though we should be deceived
By the friend that we love best?
All in this world have been grieved,
Yet many have found rest.
Our present life is as the night,
Our future as the morning light:
Surely the night will pass away,
And surely will uprise the day.”—English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), “Hope in Grief,” in The Complete Poems, edited by R. W. Crump and Betty S. Flowers (2001)

This is for all those who lost friends and relatives to COVID-19 this past year—or who could not, because of the disease, be there at the moment of passing for their loved ones.

(The image accompanying this post of Christina Rossetti was painted by her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in 1877.)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Christina Rossetti, on How ‘Hope is the Counterpoise of Fear’)

“Hope is the counterpoise of fear

While night enthralls us here.

Fear hath a startled eye that holds a tear:

Hope hath an upward glance, for dawn draws near

With sunshine and with cheer.

Fear gazing earthwards spies a bier;

And sets herself to rear

A lamentable tomb where leaves drop sere,

Bleaching to congruous skeletons austere:

Hope chants a funeral hymn most sweet and clear,

And seems true chanticleer

Of resurrection and of all things dear

In the oncoming endless year.

Fear ballasts hope, hope buoys up fear,

And both befit us here.”—English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), “Hope is the counterpoise of fear / While night enthralls us here,” from The Complete Poems, edited by R. W. Crump and Betty S. Flowers (2001 edition)

I took this picture nine years ago while on vacation at the Chautauqua Institution, a village in upstate New York where vacationers are likely to see thousands of day lilies and other flowers bloom all around. A flower feels like an appropriate symbol of hope these days—both for our survival in this time of crisis and for the ultimate deliverance promised by Jesus through the Resurrection.

Quote of the Day (Christina Rossetti, on ‘Jesus, Man's Redeemer’)

“Up Thy Hill of Sorrows

Thou all alone,

Jesus, man's Redeemer,

Climbing to a Throne:

Thro' the world triumphant,

Thro' the Church in pain,

Which think to look upon Thee

No more again.”— English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), “Good Friday Morning,” from The Complete Poems, edited by R. W. Crump and Betty S. Flowers

The image accompanying this post is The Crucifixion with Donors and Saints Peter and Margaret, by Dutch painter Cornelis Engebrechtsz (ca. 1461–1527). This oil-and-wood painting now hangs in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Quote of the Day (Christina Rossetti, on the New Year and 'The Rugged Way to Heaven')

“New Year coming on apace

What have you to give me?

Bring you scathe, or bring you grace,

Face me with an honest face;

You shall not deceive me:

Be it good or ill, be it what you will,

It needs shall help me on my road,

My rugged way to heaven, please God.”—English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), “Old and New Year Ditties,” in The Complete Poems, text by R.W. Crump, notes by Betty S. Flowers (2001)

(The image accompanying this post of Christina Rossetti was painted by her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in 1877.)

Song Lyric of the Day (Christina Rossetti, on Gifts for God ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’)

“What can I give Him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.”— English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), “A Christmas Carol,” in The Complete Poems, text by R.W. Crump, notes by Betty S. Flowers (2001)

The other day, while listening to Christmas music on a local New York area classical music station, WQXR, I heard the deejay identify the author of a carol that I had come to know as “In the Bleak Midwinter” referred to as Christina Rossetti. I was surprised, because, though I had come to know and love the song from Shawn Colvin’s 1998 collection Holiday Songs and Lullabies, I hadn’t recalled a specific identification with any work by the Victorian poet.

Then, as quickly as I could get hold of it, I looked up this particular poem by its famous first line, “In the bleak mid-winter.” It had indeed been written by Rossetti, with Gustav Holst adding the music that transformed this into an enduring holiday song. 

Much to my current regret, a college course I took nearly 40 years ago on Victorian Literature concentrated so much on Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning that it had no time for Rossetti (or, for that matter, her brother, the gifted poet-painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti). What I have read so far in the Complete Poems has convinced me that I should make up for this loss promptly.

Rossetti’s work, deceptively simple, combines both enormous skill with meter and depth of feeling (often, as in the lines I’ve quoted above, with a yearning for the sacred) in nearly every line. Feminist scholars should be congratulated for bringing renewed attention to this poet of stunning purity and beauty.

(The portrait of Christine Rossetti that accompanies this post was created by the poet's brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti.)