sibling poetry

In honor of National Poetry Month, just a quick artistic spotlight on the Victorian brother and sister poetic pair of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) and Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894).  D.G. Rossetti is well-known for both his paintings and his poetry, and he was a founding member of the rebellious and prolifically creative Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.  Christina's poetry is highly regarded in England and beyond, and she was also her brother's model in his 1848/49 painting The Girlhood of Mary Virgin.  The pictured portraits of Rossetti were done by fellow artists William Holman Hunt and George Frederic Watts, while the portraits of Christina Rossetti were done by Dante Gabriel.

Portrait of Dante Gabriel Rossetti at 22 Years of Age -- William Holman Hunt

Portrait of Dante Gabriel Rossetti -- George Frederic Watts (ca. 1871)

 

Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;

I am also call'd No-more, Too-late, Farewell;

Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell

Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between;

Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen

Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell

Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,

Of ultimate things unutter'd the frail screen . . . .

The House of Life: 97.  A Superscription (excerpt) -- D.G. Rossetti

 

Somewhere or other there must surely be

The face not seen, the voice not heard,

The heart that not yet—never yet—ah me!

Made answer to my word.

Somewhere or other, may be near or far;

Past land and sea, clean out of sight;

Beyond the wandering moon, beyond the star

That tracks her night by night.

Somewhere or other, may be far or near;

With just a wall, a hedge, between;

With just the last leaves of the dying year

Fallen on a turf grown green.

Somewhere or Other -- Christina Rossetti