Life of a Poet - Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

Christina Georgina Rossetti (December 5, 1830 - December 29, 1894) was an English poet and the sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Their father, Gabriele Rossetti, was a political asylum seeker from Naples, and their mother, Frances Polidori, was the sister of Lord Byron's friend and physician, John William Polidori.

Born in London and educated privately, she suffered ill-health in her youth, but was already writing poetry in her teens. Her engagement to a painter, James Collinson, was broken off because of religious differences (she was High Church Anglican). This experience is credited with inspiring her most popular poem 'Remember'. Some believe she also rejected a somewhat less than reputable proposition from John Ruskin. ("Here's friendship for you if you like; but love, --/No, thank you, John.")

She produced her first published verse under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne. Many of her poems were aimed at children.

Christina rejected the social world of her brother's "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood", preferring "my shady crevice -- which crevice enjoys the unique advantage of being to my certain knowledge the place assigned me."

Biography by: This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Christina Rossetti.

Christina Rossetti wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems. She is best known for her long poem Goblin Market, her love poem Remember, and for the words of the Christmas carol In the Bleak Midwinter. To read more about Rossetti, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Rossetti

REMEMBER

by: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

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.

Uphill

by: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

DOES the road wind uphill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

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 that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you waiting at that door.

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.

MIRAGE

by: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

THE hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream; and now I wake
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,
A weeping willow in a lake;
I hang my silenced harp there, wrung and snapt
For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
For a dream's sake.

Goblin Market (composed in April 1859 and published in 1862) is a poem by Christina Rossetti. In a letter to her publisher, Rossetti claimed that the poem, which features remarkably sexual imagery, was not meant for children. However, in public Rossetti often stated that the poem was intended for children, and went on to write many children's poems. When the poem appeared in her first volume of poetry, Goblin Market and Other Poems, it was illustrated by her brother, the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

The Goblin Market is an extremely long poem. If you would like to read, this link has the complete poem, http://plexipages.com/reflections/goblin.html.

An extensive list of her poetry can be found at:

http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Christina_Rossetti

I have read many reviews of the poem Remember
by: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). A good majority of people think it is somehow related to a death and funeral. According to sources detailing her life, it was written when she broke her engagement to James Collinson.

Ah, but ending a love is a sort of death, I think. I can see the two being interchangeable in some ways.

I thought these lines were interesting

"Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad."

She's promoting a sort of happy ignorance, it seems, over remembering the truth and being hurt by it. That's a dilemma that a lot of people deal with, I think. Like with depression: is it better to be depressed, or to "mask" it with medicine? (I wouldn't propose an answer to that, I think it's too complicated.) But I think it's interesting that Rossetti seems to have an answer to that conundrum. I can't figure out, though, if she's referring to herself or to her erstwhile love? Does anybody else know?

The second poem, about the inn, seems to be to be much more closely centered on death.

I had made an assumption that she wrote Remember for him but after your question, it could have been written for her as well. Perhaps she intended to give the reader the option of forming their own opinion, choosing the unlucky one at love.

Also, to any art lovers out there, Christina Rossetti was related (I think sister?) to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a painter of the Pre-Raphaelite era. I always thought this painting* was Christina, but I guess it's not. I believe Dante DID use Christina as a model, sometimes.

I know it's not to do with the poems, but I always think it's interesting to see the interconnectedness of the arts.

*http://www.spencerart.ku.edu/~sma/images/rossetti.jpg

"Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:"

This bit is beautiful. I sometimes think most people are fearful of writing this sort of throbbing emotion, so frankly, so wonderfully, down on paper nowadays. It is hard to do it quietly.

I looked at the painting in the link above and one of her on wikipedia and there is some likeness between the two, so maybe she was the model.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Christina_Rossetti_2.jpg

Me too!! It is something I do well in my mind and then a brush touches the canvas, NOTHING!!!

Oh, my heart skips a bit Sylvia!

Thank you for featuring her incredibly beautiful, amazing work!

This is one of my absolute favourites from her.

Song

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

This gives me chills as I read it. Turmoil is the foremost emotion that I feel. Remember me, forget me, I am dead. So many feeling rushing out at me.

Here is one that I had not read before.

Monna Innominata 4
by Christina Rossetti

I loved you first: but afterwards your love,
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? My love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you contrued me
And loved me for what might or might not be--
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not 'mine' or 'thine';
With separate 'I' and 'thou' free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of 'thine that is not mine';
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

I find her to be, like you all have said, emotional. Her work is very emotional and is very touching. Of the poems you have posted I find her poetry to my liking. She has a certain way of going about her poetry and she seems to take the deepest feeling inside her and somehow she is able to get it on paper. Something I find very hard to do at times. Hard to describe those feelings sometimes. Thanks for sharing. :]

Austin, glad to see you drop by and I am glad you like her work. She is one of my favorites.

Your welcome. I figured since I did kind of give the idea of doing this; I might as well pop in and say something. :]

I am glad you like her work, me too. lol