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Poems
"Go from me, summer friends, and tarry I am no summer friend, but wintry cold, A silly sheep benighted from the fold, A sluggard with a thorn-choked garden plot. Take counsel, sever from my lot your lot, Dwell in your pleasant places, hoard your gold; Lest you with me should shiver on the wold, Athirst and hungering on a barren spot."
294 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1876
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About the author
Christina Rossetti
336 books560 followersChristina Georgina Rossetti, sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, wrote lyrical religious works and ballads, such as "Up-hill" (1861).
Frances Polidori Rossetti bore this most important women poet writing in nineteenth-century England to Gabriele Rossetti. Despite her fundamentally religious temperament, closer to that of her mother, this youngest member of a remarkable family of poets, artists, and critics inherited many of her artistic tendencies from her father.
Dante made seemingly quite attractive if not beautiful but somewhat idealized sketches of Christina as a teenager. In 1848, James Collinson, one of the minor pre-Raphaelite brethren, engaged her but reverted to Roman Catholicism and afterward ended the engagement.
When failing health and eyesight forced the professor into retirement in 1853, Christina and her mother started a day school, attempting to support the family, but after a year or so, gave it away. Thereafter, a recurring illness, diagnosed as sometimes angina and sometimes tuberculosis, interrupted a very retiring life that she led. From the early 1860s, she in love with Charles Cayley, but according to her brother William, refused to marry him because "she enquired into his creed and found he was not a Christian." Milk-and-water Anglicanism was not to her taste. Lona Mosk Packer argues that her poems conceal a love for the painter William Bell Scott, but there is no other evidence for this theory, and the most respected scholar of the Pre-Raphaelite movement disputes the dates on which Packer thinks some of the more revealing poems were written.
All three Rossetti women, at first devout members of the evangelical branch of the Church of England, were drawn toward the Tractarians in the 1840s. They nevertheless retained their evangelical seriousness: Maria eventually became an Anglican nun, and Christina's religious scruples remind one of Dorothea Brooke in George Eliot's Middlemarch : as Eliot's heroine looked forward to giving up riding because she enjoyed it so much, so Christina gave up chess because she found she enjoyed winning; pasted paper strips over the antireligious parts of Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon (which allowed her to enjoy the poem very much); objected to nudity in painting, especially if the artist was a woman; and refused even to go see Wagner's Parsifal, because it celebrated a pagan mythology.
After rejecting Cayley in 1866, according one biographer, Christina (like many Victorian spinsters) lived vicariously in the lives of other people. Although pretty much a stay-at-home, her circle included her brothers' friends, like Whistler, Swinburne, F.M. Brown, and Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). She continued to write and in the 1870s to work for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. She was troubled physically by neuralgia and emotionally by Dante's breakdown in 1872. The last 12 years of her life, after his death in 1882, were quiet ones. She died of cancer.
Frances Polidori Rossetti bore this most important women poet writing in nineteenth-century England to Gabriele Rossetti. Despite her fundamentally religious temperament, closer to that of her mother, this youngest member of a remarkable family of poets, artists, and critics inherited many of her artistic tendencies from her father.
Dante made seemingly quite attractive if not beautiful but somewhat idealized sketches of Christina as a teenager. In 1848, James Collinson, one of the minor pre-Raphaelite brethren, engaged her but reverted to Roman Catholicism and afterward ended the engagement.
When failing health and eyesight forced the professor into retirement in 1853, Christina and her mother started a day school, attempting to support the family, but after a year or so, gave it away. Thereafter, a recurring illness, diagnosed as sometimes angina and sometimes tuberculosis, interrupted a very retiring life that she led. From the early 1860s, she in love with Charles Cayley, but according to her brother William, refused to marry him because "she enquired into his creed and found he was not a Christian." Milk-and-water Anglicanism was not to her taste. Lona Mosk Packer argues that her poems conceal a love for the painter William Bell Scott, but there is no other evidence for this theory, and the most respected scholar of the Pre-Raphaelite movement disputes the dates on which Packer thinks some of the more revealing poems were written.
All three Rossetti women, at first devout members of the evangelical branch of the Church of England, were drawn toward the Tractarians in the 1840s. They nevertheless retained their evangelical seriousness: Maria eventually became an Anglican nun, and Christina's religious scruples remind one of Dorothea Brooke in George Eliot's Middlemarch : as Eliot's heroine looked forward to giving up riding because she enjoyed it so much, so Christina gave up chess because she found she enjoyed winning; pasted paper strips over the antireligious parts of Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon (which allowed her to enjoy the poem very much); objected to nudity in painting, especially if the artist was a woman; and refused even to go see Wagner's Parsifal, because it celebrated a pagan mythology.
After rejecting Cayley in 1866, according one biographer, Christina (like many Victorian spinsters) lived vicariously in the lives of other people. Although pretty much a stay-at-home, her circle included her brothers' friends, like Whistler, Swinburne, F.M. Brown, and Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). She continued to write and in the 1870s to work for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. She was troubled physically by neuralgia and emotionally by Dante's breakdown in 1872. The last 12 years of her life, after his death in 1882, were quiet ones. She died of cancer.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 12, 2022
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.
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.
June 8, 2023
Christina Rossetti, a member of the talented Rossetti family, is arguably best known for her poem that became the lyrics to the Christmas carol we now know as "In the Bleak Midwinter." While that is a superb poem, her poetry is much broader than merely Christmas songs. By reading this collection of poems by Christina Rossetti, one can see how profound of a woman she was spiritually, emotionally, and in her relationship with the nature around her.
I picked this up because I had read some of her poems and enjoyed them, and as I began reading this collection, I quickly discovered Rossetti was a far superior poet than I had anticipated. I strongly encourage those looking for a great poet to give at least a glance at some of Christina Rossetti's poems... You probably will find she has a fair share of skill, wisdom, and wit.
"For what is knowledge duly weighed?
Knowledge is strong, but love is sweet;
Yea, all the progress he had made
Was but to learn that all is small
Save love, for love is all in all."
I picked this up because I had read some of her poems and enjoyed them, and as I began reading this collection, I quickly discovered Rossetti was a far superior poet than I had anticipated. I strongly encourage those looking for a great poet to give at least a glance at some of Christina Rossetti's poems... You probably will find she has a fair share of skill, wisdom, and wit.
"For what is knowledge duly weighed?
Knowledge is strong, but love is sweet;
Yea, all the progress he had made
Was but to learn that all is small
Save love, for love is all in all."
February 4, 2023
Poems by Christina Rossetti - She is one of my favorite poets (and Christmas carol lyricists)! Happy Reading!
December 31, 2025
I love her poetry, especially "The Goblin Market.". one of my favorite poets.
April 28, 2017
I am definitely going to buy a print copy of this wonderful book of poetry. I first became intrigued with Christina Rossetti last year, in 2015, when I chanced upon a penguin publication of her poem, The Goblin Market as part of its 80th anniversary celebrations. I could only imagine the Victorian circumstances and way of living that forced such brilliant women like Rossetti to seek their creative outlet through poetry. As a new Kindle reader, among the very first books that I searched for were Rossetti's complete works of poetry and this book is a treasurer's delight. There are about 230 poems. I could read them all one each day and keep doing it for the rest of my life. Bravo, Christina.
December 15, 2014
http://www.munseys.com/book/22140/Poems. Read: 18 Feb-7 March 2009. A bit much sometimes, especially when she’s on about religion, but I enjoyed quite a few.
http://marklindner.info/blog/2009/12/...
http://marklindner.info/blog/2009/12/...
December 25, 2021
Christina Rossetti loved God, and her poetry reflects it. For me, that earns her 5 stars. Her poetic technique is not always refined; there are awkward rhymes. But others are gems. The Christmas hymn "In the Bleak Midwinter" is based on one of her poems.
June 8, 2015
Loved most of the poems, but some of them where the traditional woman's role as a "helpmeet for him" (i.e. a man, actually it's the title of one of the poems) was praised made me annoyed.
January 19, 2020
Okay
This was an okay poem book. I have to admit that this is not the normal type of book that I would read. And I did read the whole book which wasn't too bad.
This was an okay poem book. I have to admit that this is not the normal type of book that I would read. And I did read the whole book which wasn't too bad.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews