In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands."
Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894) was an English poet. She is best known for her poems Goblin Market, In the Bleak Midwinter, and Love Came Down at Christmas, the latter two having been set to music as popular Christmas carols in the United Kingdom.
She was born in London on 5 December 1830 to a literary and artistic family of Italian descent: Gabriele Rossetti, a writer and exile from Vasto; and Frances Polidori, the sister of John William Polidori. She was the youngest of four children; the eldest child, Maria Francesca, entered the Society of All Saints, an Anglican religious order. Her older brothers, Dante Gabriel and William Michael, became founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an artistic movement that sought a return to the Quattrocento art style, which predated Raphael. She was homeschooled and studied religious works, classics, fairy tales, and novels, particularly delighting in the works of John Keats, Walter Scott, Ann Radcliffe, Dante Alighieri, and Petrarch.
When she was sixteen, her grandfather, Gaetano Polidori, printed a collection of her poems, believing that they were worthy of publication. In 1850, she wrote seven poems for The Germ, the Pre-Raphaelite magazine, under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne. She then went on to publish several collections of poetry, including Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), for which she received significant praise, and Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book (1872), a poetry book for children.
Rossetti was also a devout Anglican, and her religious faith was a significant part of her life. In 1848, she was engaged to the painter James Collinson, one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelites. Collinson, who was raised an Anglican and converted to the Catholic faith, initially returned to Anglicanism since the Rossettis would not allow a Catholic in the family. This, however, did not last as Collinson reverted to the Catholic faith after two years. This move clashed with Rossetti's Anglicanism, so the engagement was broken. She also declined to marry Charles Cayley, a linguist who made translations of Homer and Dante, on the grounds that he was not a Christian. She was also drawn to the Oxford Movement in the Church of England, and much of her writing was of a religious character, having a strong sense of spiritual yearning and melancholy. In addition to her poems, Rossetti also wrote religious prose works, such as Seek and Find (1879), Called To Be Saints (1881) and The Face of the Deep (1892).
By the 1880s, recurrent bouts of Graves' disease ended Rossetti's attempts to work as a governess. While the illness restricted her social life, she continued to write poems, compiled in later works such as A Pageant and Other Poems (1881). In 1891, Rossetti developed cancer, of which she died in London on December 29, 1894. Rossetti's brother, William Michael, edited her collected works in 1904, but the Complete Poems were not published before 1979.
Selected Works and Collections:
- Verses (1847): A collection of Rossetti's juvenilia. Her grandfather saw that her poems were worthy of publication, so he had them collected and printed.
- Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862):
- The Prince's Progress and Other Poems (1866):
- Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book (1872): A collection of poems she wrote for children.
- Seek and Find (1879): A devotional commentary on the Anglican Benedicite, a prayer used in worship.
- A Pageant and Other Poems (1881):
- Called To Be Saints (1881): A devotional commentary on the Saints commemorated by name in the Book of Common Prayer.
- The Face of the Deep (1892): Another devotional commentary on the Book of Revelation
