In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter,
Long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away,
When He comes to reign.
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay.
Enough for Him whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.
Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Throng'd the air,
But only His mother,
In her maiden bliss.
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.
What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man,
I would do my part;
Yet what can I give Him?
Give my heart.
which, from beginning to end, has the very note of a Tuscan Adoration.
This exquisite felicity did not continue. It could not be expected that it should. Miss Rossetti had always been capable in her writings of complete and unexpected failures; in many of her lyrics everything is there—style, feeling, harmony, but somehow the mood does not quicken into poetry. In later life she published an immense volume, the Face of the Deep, extending to over 550 pages, a devotional commentary on the "Apocalypse." This is written in uncouth and shapeless prose, as a rule; and though it has many suggestive and striking thoughts, and some images of exquisite beauty, yet it is a singular monument of failure. Scattered up and down in it are several hundred religious lyrics, which are never exactly commonplace, but seldom satisfactory. I venture to quote one, which may serve as a fair sample, p. 119, chap. iii. v. 10:
Wisest of sparrows, that sparrow which sitteth alone
Perched on the housetop, its own upper chamber, for nest.
Wisest of swallows, that swallow which timely hath flown
Over the turbulent sea to the land of its rest;
Wisest of sparrows and swallows, if I were as wise!
Wisest of spirits, that spirit which dwelleth apart,
Hid in the Presence of God for a chapel and nest,
Sending a wish and a will and a passionate heart
Over the eddy of life to that Presence in rest,
Seated alone and in peace till God bids it arise.
One word must, perhaps, be said here on the question of her technical skill and metrical handling. With characteristic humility, she was herself of opinion, as appears from a letter to Mr. Gosse, that the inspiration of her sonnets was wholly derived from her brother. That was an entire, if affectionate, mistake. There is no real or even apparent connection. There is none of the intricate scheming, the subtle inter-weaving of tremulous tones which make D. G. Rossetti's sonnets the most musical of English sonnets. But the consequence is that Dante Gabriel's sonnets are not in the least characteristically English. The sonnets of Milton and Wordsworth may be regarded as the true examples of English sonnet-writing, stiff, grave, sober, drawing through precise and even stilted metres to a sonorous and rhetorical close. D. G. Rossetti's are exotic work essentially. But that is not true of Miss Rossetti's. They are simple and severe. In such a sequence as "Monna Innominata," there is not a trace of the luscious and labyrinthine ecstacies of her brother's work; they are indeed far more like Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese.
Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke;
I love, as you would have me, God the most;
Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost;
Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look,
Unready to forego what I forsook.
This say I, having counted up the cost.
This, though I be the feeblest of God's host,
The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook.
Yet while I love my God the most, I deem
That I can never love you overmuch;
I love Him more, so let me love you too;
Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such,
I cannot love you if I love not Him,
I cannot love Him if I love not you.
This severity is not the same in her lyrics; it will be obvious from the specimens already quoted, that, if anything, the metrical scheme is not strict enough. In many lines will be found a deficiency of syllables, musically compensated for by variety of accent; many of her rhymes are almost licentious in their vagueness. But for some reason I have found that they do not offend the critical judgment, as Mrs. Browning's do. Whether it is that the directness and simplicity of the feeling overpowers all minute fastidiousness, or whether they are all part of the careful artlessness of the mood, is hard to determine. But the fact remains, that none but the most inquisitive of critics would be likely to hold that the art is thereby vitiated.
Lastly, of all the great themes with which Miss Rossetti deals, she is, above all writers, the singer of Death. Whether as the eternal home-coming, or the quiet relief after the intolerable restlessness of the world, or as the deep reality in which the fretful vanities of life are merged, it is always in view, as the dark majestic portal to which the weary road winds at last. True, in one of the earliest and most beautiful of all her lyrics, the sense of dissatisfied loneliness is carried on beyond the gate of Death.