Heroines of the Faith: Christina Rossetti

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti (Portrait by her brother)

My Gift

What can I give Him

Poor as I am;

If I were a shepherd,

I would give Him a lamb.

If I were a wise man,

I would do my part.

But what can I give Him?

I will give my heart.

~ Christina Rossetti

Who is Christina Rossetti?

Christina Georgina Rossetti was a Victorian poet in London, England though her family was actually Italian. She was home educated and much of her poetry presents a Christian message since she was a religious young woman with a high moral and value system.

Some interesting facts about her life ~

She was a lively child who narrated stories to her mother before she learned to write.
She broke off her first engagement to a fiance because he reverted to Roman Catholicism.
Christina suffered poor health and through her life was diagnosed with angina and sometimes tuberculosis which is probably why you read so many poems of hers about death.
She grew attached to another gentlemen in the 1860's but refused his proposal when "she enquired into his creed and found he was not a Christian."
She apparently gave up chess because she enjoyed winning so much.
She objected to nudity in painting and refused to go see Wagner's Parsifal, because it celebrated a pagan mythology.
She never married but lived peacefully in the world she was in, engaged in her home life, writing, and fellowship with her family and friends.
Her last years were quiet ones as she suffered from neuralgia and passed away of cancer in December 29, 1894. She was 64 years old.

(Web Source: The Victorian Web)

Though she never married and had children of her own, the legacy she left the next generation were the words she wrote confessing a love for Christ. I hope you enjoyed reading some information on this talented woman and I hope it inspires you to live by your principles as our dear poetess had in her own way…