1882.
My blessed mother dozing in her chair
On Christmas Day seemed an embodied Love,
A comfortable Love with soft brown hair
Softened and silvered to a tint of dove;
A better sort of Venus with an air
Angelical from thoughts that dwell above;
A wiser Pallas in whose body fair
Enshrined a blessed soul looks out thereof.
Winter brought holly then, now Spring has brought
Paler and frailer snowdrops shivering;
And I have brought a simple humble thought—
I her devoted duteous Valentine—
A lifelong thought which thrills this song I sing,
A lifelong love to this dear saint of mine.
Although this was not so with Christina, upon whose face ill-health worked its ravages, her temperament, as we say, remained as young as ever. The lovely relations—sometimes staid and sometimes playful—between mother and daughter, are seen throughout the book before us. But especially are they seen in one little group of poems—“The Valentines to her Mother”—in regard to which Christina left the following pencilled note:—
“These Valentines had their origin from my
dearest mother’s remarking that she had never received one. I, her C. G. R., ever after supplied one on the day; and (so far as I recollect) it was a surprise every time, she having forgotten all about it in the interim.”
Mrs. Rossetti’s first valentine was received when she was nearly seventy-six years of age, and she continued every year to receive a valentine until 1886, when she died. Surely there is not in the history of English poetry anything more fascinating than these valentines.
It is pleasing to see the book open with the following dedication by Mr. W. M. Rossetti:—
“To Algernon Charles Swinburne, a generous eulogist of Christina Rossetti, who hailed his genius and prized himself the greatest of living British poets, my old and constant friend, I dedicate this book.”
V. DR. GORDON HAKE.
1809–1895.
I little thought when I recently quoted from Dr. Hake’s account of that Christmas gathering of the Rossettis at Bognor in 1875—a gathering which he has made historic—that to-day I should be writing an obituary notice of the “parable-poet” himself. It is true that, having fractured a leg in a lamentable accident which befell him, he had for the last few years been imprisoned in one room and compelled during most of the time to lie in a horizontal position. But notwithstanding this, and notwithstanding his great age, his mental faculties remained so unimpaired that it was hard to believe his death could be so near.