christina rossetti, poet (1830-1894)

Christina Rossetti was born in London, one of four children of Italian parents. Her father was the poet Gabriele Rossetti. Her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, also became a poet, as well as a painter of the Pre-Raphaelite art movement.  She was educated at home and encouraged to write by her family; in fact, her teenage poems were printed by her grandfather on his own press.

Rossetti wrote a collection of verses for children in 1872.  It was titled SING-SONG and was illustrated by Arthur Hughes.  But she is best known for her ballads and her mystic religious lyrics.
Her poetry is marked by symbolism and intense feeling.

Rossetti's best-known work, Goblin Market and Other Poems, was published in 1862. The collection established Rossetti as a significant voice in Victorian poetry.

By the 1880s, recurrent bouts of Graves' disease made Rossetti an invalid, and ended her attempts to work as a governess.  She died of cancer on December 29, 1894.

WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND?
by Christina Rossetti

Watercolor by ARIS ILLUSTRATION

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER...

"Angels and archangels may have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;

But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,

Worshipped the beloved with a kiss."

-Verse from Rossetti's poem A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Christina Rossetti is also the author of many Advent and Christmas poems, posthumously published in her POETIC WORKS, in 1904. Her most famous, A Christmas Carol became a favorite Christmas hymn entitled In the Bleak Midwinter after it appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906, with a setting by Gustav Holst (and later by Harold Darke).  It has been performed by choirs and soloists ever since, including the Robert Shaw Chorale, Chanticleer, Julie Andrews, Sarah Mclachlan, and most recently, James Taylor (who sings my favorite modern rendition).

Gustav Holtz version, performed by James Taylor



Harold Darke version, performed by Winchester Cathedral Choir