vate feelings. Apparently a natural liveliness of disposition was early moderated by instinctive piety and by the renunciations which a very sensitive conscience imposed. Two love affairs, one culminating when she was nineteen, the second taking place in her thirties, left a deep impress upon her character and her writing. In the first case, she felt compelled to break an engagement with an indecisive suitor who, after renouncing Roman Catholicism for her sake, had later rejoined that communion. Her second lover was an estimable and unworldly scholar, Charles Bagot Cayley; her rejection of his offer was due, at least in part, to scruples regarding his religious beliefs, but she continued to love him, says her brother William, to the last day of her life. Although Miss Rossetti was by no means an intolerant person, in matters involving her own faith or conscience she was adamant, reminding us of her verse concerning another, "She stands there patient, nerved with inner light" (from "A Soul," page 555). With all her sweetness, this over-scrupulousness was, as her brother admits, a fault; but a fault by which English literature is the gainer. How exquisitely responsive she was to human love is shown in the touching lyrics, "When I am dead, my dearest," "Oh roses for the flush of youth," "Echo" (page 555), and that birthday song of pure joy, Elizabethan in its full-throated melody, "My heart is like a singing bird." But it was the instinct of renunciation from which came those greater poems of spiritual depth and insight, "Two Pursuits" (page 554), "Does the road wind up-hill all the way?" and "Passing Away" (page 555). The contrast between her certitude and the troubled spirit of the Victorian period is striking. In the expression of religious faith, neither intellectualized into doctrine nor shadowed by doubt, Miss Rossetti is perhaps excelled by no other English poet. The poetry of Christina Rossetti is unforced, sincere, nearly always somewhat individual in expression. The predominance of the ideas of death and religious seeking is not surprising when we remember how often she or those dear to her trod the Valley of the Shadow, and how continuously her thoughts centered in the fears and the ecstasies of her faith. Yet extended reading in her poems (aside from the highly imaginative fantasy Goblin Market) leaves an impression of tenuousness and monotony. Apparently this persistent, gentle exercise of her faculty was the necessary process by which she arrived at her occasional triumphs of the singing voice, of authentic inspiration. Her work more than bears comparison with that of Mrs. Browning, whom Christina Rossetti admired, and with whom she shares the primacy among the women poets of England of all periods. Mrs. Browning is more varied, more intellectual, more ardent; she touches life at more points, and she writes with a greater abandon. On the other hand, her poetry shows faults of taste, in conception and in execution, from which Miss Rossetti's is free. And in what may be regarded as the main point of interest in such a comparison - the completeness with which either writer has grasped and expressed those phases of the life of the spirit which belong peculiarly to women - Miss Rossetti would probably be given the preference. Even in her religious mysticism there is something feminine. "Read the masculine poets who have heard this mystic call of the spirit, and you feel yourself in the presence of a strong will that has grasped the world, and, finding it insufficient, deliberately casts it away; and there is no room for pathetic regret in their ruthless determination to renounce. But this womanly poet does not properly renounce at all, she passively allows the world to glide away from her. The strength of her genius is endurance" (P. E. More, Shelburne Essays, Third Series, page 128). TWO PURSUITS Compare "The Pillar of the Cloud" (page 299). The next sonnet may be read as a sequel. REST What is the peculiar beauty of this poem in comparison with section XLIII of "In Memoriam" (page 333). PART THREE: THE LATER NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY W. B. SCOTT: PYGMALION William Bell Scott (1811-1890), at once poet and painter like Rossetti, was a close associate in London of the Pre-Raphaelite artists, and they figure largely in his Autobiographical Notes (1892).—"Pygmalion | and the Image" is the subject of one of the stories in The Earthly Paradise of William Morris. In Morris's treatment of the old myth, the statue, before its awakening, stands 'with one hand reached out as to a lover... The other held a fair rose over-blown; shown Unto them, something of its sweet surprise, Yet saddened them with half-seen mysteries; And still midst passion maiden-like she seemed, As though of love unchanged for aye she dreamed." The transformation is approached very gradually. But here, in accordance with the sonnet-form, it comes in a rapid climax. This sonnet may serve to introduce that fresh preoccupation with art and beauty, and that withdrawal from Victorian problems of conduct and religion, which appears in the work of Rossetti and Morris. (557.) 2. myrtle: sacred to Venus. 4. shafts: pillars (of the temple). 13. zoned: girdled.-peplos: (same as "peplum") a rich drapery, folded irregularly about the body. 14. at once: given at once. DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828-1882) After the poetic spirit of the early nineteenth century, with its exquisite sensuousness, its eagerness for beauty, its faith in imagination, its love of adventure and of wonder, had been controlled and deepened, at the expense of its freshness and energy, by the more ethical and intellectual muse of the middle of the century. there came a romantic revival, a kind of Indian summer, reacting against the materialism of the new industrial era, as the original romantic impulse had reacted against the "prose and reason" of the eighteenth century. In this revival, the leading poets were Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne; and it was the first of the three, Rossetti, who was, according to Ruskin, "the chief intellectual force in the establishment of the Modern Romantic School in England." This position Rossetti attained through his activity in two arts: painting and poetry. Three-quarters Italian by blood, he came naturally by a warm æstheticism that is rare in England. Most of his education he received in London art academies. In 1848, with Holman Hunt, Millais, and others, he founded the Pre-Raphaelite school of painting, which rejected the conventions associated with the imitation of Raphael, and called for a return to the naïve truth and mystical piety of the earlier Italian painters. Himself the leading force in Pre-Raphaelitism, Rossetti exemplified its doctrines in both his pictures and his poetry. They are manifest, for instance, in "The Blessed Damozel," written when he was but nineteen. Thereafter, although for many years he gave his main energy to 780 painting, his devotion to literature persisted. He loved Dante, and translated admirably The Early Italian Poets (1861). Of English writers he seems to have been most attached to Malory, Coleridge, and Keats; and he reproduced in his own verse something of the medieval picturesqueness of the first, the magic and wonder of the second, and the rich sensuousness and closely packed phrasing of the third. Many of his poems, long a source of fascination to his friends, appeared in a volume published in 1870; it was followed by Poems and Ballads the year before his death. In his closing years he was subject to depression, used chloral too freely, and became a recluse. Earlier, his life had been darkened by the premature death of his wife (see the introductory note on "The House of Life," below). Though gifted with a strong mind and character, Rossetti held aloof from the social and intellectual problems of his day; they did not interest him, they scarcely existed for him. What did interest him and wholly absorb him was art beauty — perfect expression. A warm, breathing, forcibly concentrated expression, with Dante's sharpness of imagery, and the romantic blending of sense and soul, and his own peculiar lusciousness, — such is Rossetti's poetry. Sometimes it cloys; generally it exerts the enchantment of a luxuriant, lovingly tended garden of verse, quite unique in our language. MY SISTER'S SLEEP (557.) 25. by dwindling years: by old persons. As their remaining years become fewer, they may catch, whenever the clock strikes, the warning of Time which others hear only in the twelve strokes that tell the end of each day. THE BLESSED DAMOZEL Rossetti's painting of the same name (reproduced in Marillier's Dante Gabriel Rossetti) corresponds to the picture given in the poem. He had in mind the visual conception of heaven used by Dante, not Milton. "I saw that Poe had done the utmost it was possible to do with the grief of the lover on earth [in "The Raven"] and so I determined to reverse the conditions, and give utterance to the yearning of the loved one in heaven" (Rossetti). But notice that this yearning as indicated by the parenthetic passages in the poem - is that which is attributed to the "loved one in heaven" by "the lover on earth," and answers to his own yearning (see line 19 ff.). In spirit the poem is the converse of Christina Rossetti's "Passing Away" and "Lord, Dost Thou Look" (pages 555, 556). (558.) 10. For service meetly worn: fittingly worn in the service of Mary. — The "white rose" suggests both love and purity. 47. Supply "until" (from line 45) before the lilies. (559.) 114. just born, being dead: Cf. the last line of the preceding poem. 126. citherns and citoles: In medieval times, the cithern was a kind of lute or guitar. The citole was a small dulcimer, i.e., a stringed instrument held horizontally. 127-132. There will I ask etc.: See the second paragraph of the introductory note; and compare Browning's "Speculative" (page 471). SISTER HELEN The superstition on which this poem is founded, though very ancient and widespread, is most familiar to us in the medieval European setting that Rossetti here draws upon. The false lover whom Helen is punishing is Keith of Ewern. - The "little brother" provides the viewpoint of a simple and innocent, but closely interested, onlooker. The effect of the parenthetic refrain comes out very well if it be rapidly chanted by several persons in unison, while two others read the parts of the brother and sister. (562.) 129. the white plume: It shines in the moonlit darkness, like "the white mane" (line 73). 148. a broken coin: i.e., his half of the divided coin that served as a pledge; alluded to in line 151. FRANCESCA DA RIMINI The metre is the terza rima of the original: the second line of each tercet rimes with the first and third of the succeeding. Those who cannot read the original may fruitfully compare the blank verse linefor-line rendering in Henry Johnson's translation of The Divine Comedy (Yale Press, 1915). Francesca, an Italian lady of the thirteenth century, and Paolo, her husband's younger brother, were killed by the husband when he discovered their illicit love. Here, the shades of the two appear to Dante; and, through the words of Francesca, he recounts the most intense and appealing moment in their story. - For Leigh Hunt's use of the story see the note on him, above (page 694). Poetic dramas have been made of it by G. H. Boker (1823-1890) and Stephen Phillips (18641915). (565.) 12. thy guide: Virgil. 20. still: always. 26. A Galahalt etc.: Of the various medieval versions of the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, she particularizes the one they were reading. ON REFUSAL OF AID BETWEEN NATIONS The poet had particularly in mind the apathy with which other countries were witnessing the national struggle of Hungary and Italy against Austria. THE SEA-LIMITS The title suggests at once the short, and the bounded purpose, of the sea. (566.) 3. The murmur etc.: as though the Earth were a shell and the sea's sound were the murmur of it. Cf. lines 22-25. 4-6. Secret - - further: Continuance, mysterious and awful, is the sea's goal; nor can our human eyes perceive an aim beyond that (cf. lines 26-28). 8-10. No quiet etc.: The sea has none of the real quiet which belongs to Death; but only the mournfulness which belongs to aged Life, in its dull, persistent effort to continue (cf. the last line of the preceding poem). 11-12. As the world's heart etc.: The uneasy beating of the waves on the shore is as the pulse of the world's heart, in which passion and apathy (or "rest") alternate. THE HOUSE OF LIFE This great sonnet-sequence, on which Rossetti worked intermittently from his twentieth year until just before his death, was mainly inspired by his love and grief for Elizabeth Siddal. She shared his interest in art and poetry, and her type of beauty appealed strongly to him. Her features appear in the ideal women of his earlier paintings, notably in the mystic "Beata Beatrix," after her death; and her charm supplies invisibly (particulars of her personality are omitted) much of the atmosphere of the love sonnets. Although he was in love with her as early as 1850, they were not married till 1860, and less than two years afterward she died. In his first grief, Rossetti buried with her all his manuscript poems; which were disinterred later and published in the 1870 volume. For the reading of human destinies, old astrologers divided the heavens into twelve equal regions called "houses," the first and most powerful of which was the "house of life." The suggestion of the title is strengthened in the two headings under which Rossetti finally arranged the sonnets: Part I, Youth and Change (sonnets I-LIX); Part II, Change and Fate (sonnets LX-CI). The arrangement has no relation to the order of composition; the latter, as conjectured by the poet's brother and biographer, W. M. Rossetti, is given in the Notes of the Complete Poetical Works. As one keen instance of the ways of the poetic spirit, and of sorrow, it may be remarked that "The One Hope" was written before, and "Silent Noon" after, the year 1870. Introductory Sonnet. 4. lustral rite: purificatory ceremonial suggesting religious sacrifice and hope, in contrast to dire por tent. 5. arduous fulness: Compare the idea of Wordsworth's sonnet "Nuns Fret Not" (page 44). 8. orient: This, in connection with |