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Take Your Poet to Work: Christina Rossetti

By Will Willingham 18 Comments

What if you could take your favorite poet to work with you? Imagine finding a poet in your cash drawer when you open it to make change. Or think about how much fun you could have with your favorite poet answering all your calls for the day. We can’t wait to see what our favorite poets will be doing in your workplaces on Take Your Poet to Work Day.

Take Your Poet to Work Day is coming July 16

To help you play and celebrate with us, we’re releasing poets each week in a compact, convenient format you can tuck in your pocket, tool belt, or lunchbox. Last year, we gave you Sara Teasdale,  Pablo Neruda,  T. S. Eliot,  Rumi,  Edgar Allan Poe,  and the reclusive Emily Dickinson (for folks who work at home). We even released a full collection,  The Haiku Masters: Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson, and Kobayashi Issa.

This year, we’re building on the collection, adding one new poet each Wednesday, up until the big day. We started the celebration over the past few weeks with Langston Hughes,  Adrienne Rich and John Keats,  and William Butler Yeats. Today, we introduce one of the most prominent Victorian poets, Christina Rossetti.

Take Your Poet to Work: Christina Rossetti

 

Take Your Poet to Work Day Printable Christina Rossetti

Click here for a downloadable version of  Take Your Poet to Work Day Printable Christina Rossetti that you can print, and color and cut out for the big day.

Christina Rossetti

Yea, take thy fill of love, because thy will
Chose love not in the shallows but the deep

Christina Rossetti was born in London to Italian immigrants in 1830. She grew up in a literary environment, as her father was a poet. Her mother, a governess, educated her at home. Her brother Dante Gabriel was a poet as well as a painter, while  her brother William Michael an art and literary critic and editor. Her sister Maria also wrote an important work on Dante. As children, the Rossetti siblings produced their own newspaper.

Rossetti’s first poems were printed privately by her grandfather as early as 1842 and distributed to friends and family. Two of her poems were published in The Athenaeum in 1847 and she had several poems printed in The Germ, the Pre-Raphaelite journal founded by her brother and his friends. She published her first collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems, in 1862, followed by The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems in 1866 and Sing-Song, an illustrated collection for children in 1872. She fell ill in the 1880s and was unable to work or maintain an active social life but continued writing poems, with additional collections published in 1881 and 1892.

Her poems—most often ballads and lyric poems—were marked by themes of religion, mortality, and loss as well as the inconstancy of love. Her work is known for its emotional intensity and its economy. She is often compared to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, among the most prominent Victorian poets. She died in London in 1894.

Dream Land

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
         Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
         Her pleasant lot.

 

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
         And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
         That sadly sings.

 

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
         The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
         Upon her hand.

 

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart’s core
         Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
         Her perfect peace.

 

I loved you first: but afterwards your love

Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda. – Dante
Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore,
E sol ivi con voi rimansi amore. 
– Petrarca

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 construed 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.

 

Learn more about Take Your Poet to Work Day and our featured poets

Check out our Poetry at Work Day Infographic and help spread the word

Learn more about W. B. Yeats

Post and illustrations by LW Lindquist.

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Will Willingham
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Will Willingham
Director of Many Things; Senior Editor, Designer and Illustrator at Tweetspeak Poetry
I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel is Adjustments.
Will Willingham
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Filed Under: Christina Rossetti, love poems, poetry, Take Your Poet to Work Day

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About Will Willingham

I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel is Adjustments.

Comments

  1. Maureen Doallas says

    July 2, 2014 at 10:35 am

    Love your illustration.

    Reply
  2. Robinlyn Schierenbeck says

    July 5, 2014 at 8:22 pm

    Thank you for the introduction
    to Christina Rossetti’s poetry!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Take Your Poet to Work: Sylvia Plath | says:
    July 9, 2014 at 9:04 am

    […] the past few weeks with Langston Hughes, Adrienne Rich,  John Keats, William Butler Yeats, and Christina Rossetti. Today, we introduce a 20th-century American poet, Sylvia […]

    Reply
  2. Take Your Poet to Work: William Shakespeare - says:
    June 3, 2015 at 9:15 am

    […] last year, we added Langston Hughes, Adrienne Rich,  John Keats, William Butler Yeats, Christina Rossetti and the beloved 20th-century American poet, Sylvia […]

    Reply
  3. Take Your Poet to Work: Robert Frost - says:
    June 29, 2015 at 6:38 pm

    […] last year, we added Langston Hughes, Adrienne Rich,  John Keats, William Butler Yeats, Christina Rossetti and the beloved 20th-century American poet, Sylvia […]

    Reply
  4. Take Your Poet to Work: Wisława Szymborska - says:
    July 2, 2015 at 8:00 am

    […] last year, we added Langston Hughes, Adrienne Rich,  John Keats, William Butler Yeats, Christina Rossetti and the beloved 20th-century American poet, Sylvia […]

    Reply
  5. Oh, Baby: Top 10 Baby Poems - says:
    July 2, 2015 at 8:01 am

    […] 10. I Know a Baby, Such a Baby by Christina Rossetti […]

    Reply
  6. Take Your Poet to Work: Seamus Heaney - says:
    June 23, 2016 at 10:59 am

    […] Issa. In 2014, we added Langston Hughes, Adrienne Rich,  John Keats, William Butler Yeats, Christina Rossetti and the beloved 20th-century American poet, Sylvia Plath. And last year, we introduced the Bard […]

    Reply
  7. Take Your Poet to Work: Emily Brontë - says:
    June 29, 2016 at 8:49 am

    […] Issa. In 2014, we added Langston Hughes, Adrienne Rich,  John Keats, William Butler Yeats, Christina Rossetti and the beloved 20th-century American poet, Sylvia Plath. And last year, we introduced the Bard […]

    Reply
  8. Take Your Poet to Work Day: On Location - says:
    July 20, 2016 at 5:02 am

    […] fun at Easter Island he invited Edgar Allan Poe to Stonehenge. Poe brought along  John Keats and Christina Rossetti, who just wanted to read books all […]

    Reply
  9. Birthdays & Birthstones Poetry Prompt: A Rossetti List Poem - says:
    April 9, 2018 at 8:14 am

    […] –by Christina Rossetti […]

    Reply
  10. Take Your Poet to Work Day: Jorge Luis Borges - says:
    July 4, 2018 at 8:38 am

    […] 2014, we added Langston Hughes, Adrienne Rich, John Keats, William Butler Yeats, Christina Rossetti and the beloved 20th-century American poet, Sylvia […]

    Reply
  11. Take Your Poet to Work Day: Rosalía de Castro - says:
    July 5, 2018 at 8:01 am

    […] 2014, we added Langston Hughes,  Adrienne Rich,  John Keats,  William Butler Yeats,  Christina Rossetti and the beloved 20th-century American poet, Sylvia […]

    Reply
  12. Take Your Poet to Work Day: Rosario Castellanos - says:
    July 12, 2018 at 8:01 am

    […] 2014, we added Langston Hughes,  Adrienne Rich,  John Keats,  William Butler Yeats,  Christina Rossetti and the beloved 20th-century American poet, Sylvia […]

    Reply
  13. Take Your Poet to Work Day: C. D. Wright | says:
    June 19, 2019 at 11:07 am

    […] 2014, we added Langston Hughes,  Adrienne Rich,  John Keats,  William Butler Yeats,  Christina Rossetti and the beloved 20th-century American poet, Sylvia […]

    Reply
  14. Take Your Poet to Work Day: Tony Hoagland | says:
    June 26, 2019 at 5:01 am

    […] 2014, we added Langston Hughes,  Adrienne Rich,  John Keats,  William Butler Yeats,  Christina Rossetti and the beloved 20th-century American poet, Sylvia […]

    Reply
  15. Take Your Poet to Work Day: Mary Oliver | says:
    July 4, 2019 at 2:34 pm

    […] 2014, we added Langston Hughes,  Adrienne Rich,  John Keats,  William Butler Yeats,  Christina Rossetti and the beloved 20th-century American poet, Sylvia […]

    Reply
  16. By Heart: 'Somewhere or Other' + New H.D. Challenge | Tweetspeak Poetry says:
    September 24, 2021 at 11:14 am

    […] Christina Rossetti lived in England, in the 19th century, during the Victorian era. Her poems are simple and lyrical and have always had a place among poetry-lovers. If you think you’ve never heard of her, you probably know one of her poems that has become a Christmas carol, In the Bleak Midwinter. […]

    Reply

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