CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI HELLEY once defined poetry as “the Srecord of the best and happiest mo ments of the best and happiest minds”; whereupon the "London Saturday Review" remarks that there is a tuneful meditativeness about Miss Rossetti's verses which in a manner stamp them thus, as "records of the best moments of one of the happiest minds." This wonderfully gifted poet was the daughter of Gabriele Rossetti, the exiled Italian patriot and philosopher, and was born in London in 1830. She began to write verses when she had just reached her thirteenth year, and before she was seventeen a volume of her poems was privately printed. In after years Miss Rossetti wrote a considerable amount of prose, but her fame rests almost wholly on her lyric poems. Her poetic gifts were hardly less brilliant than those of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, with whom she is frequently compared; and among her productions are some of the noblest examples of religious lyrics to be found in English literature. There is a touch of pathos in many of her hymns, but no complaining note. Her life was darkened by much physical suffering. She was doomed to an incurable malady; but through it all she was trustful and patient, and during those weary years she wrote numerous hymns and sonnets of exquisite beauty. Death released her from work and sorrow in December, 1894. Many of Miss Rossetti's sacred poems are pervaded by a religious feeling that is very touching, and are not without tunefulness, yet none of them are found in American hymnals. In Great Britain, however, where appreciation of the high character of her lyric verses is becoming greatly enlarged, a number of her hymns are included in various church collections. A hymn that beautifully illustrates Miss Rossetti's Christian trust while lingering in deep tribulation, is the following, which comes from a volume of hers called "New Poems," published by Macmillan & Com pany, New York. It is perfect in poetic quality, and sweet in its tenderness of tone: I will not faint, but trust in God, Which is the road to heaven. My life is but a working day, And then, please God, a quiet night Where saints and angels walk in white; One dreamless sleep from work and sorrow, But reawakening on the morrow. That Miss Rossetti's hymns possess a large degree of purity of emotional thought, and particularly a great depth of devotional spirit, is shown in her lovely lines on "Weary in Well-doing": I would have gone; God bade me stay : He broke my will from day to day, Now I would stay; God bids me go: I go, Lord, where Thou sendest me; And rest with Thee? Miss Rossetti was a communicant of the Anglican Church, and occasionally engaged in Christian work in a quiet way, but otherwise she lived a very secluded life. All her poems and sonnets, especially those of a devotional kind, came spontaneously. Her brother William Michael, who edited her works in 1895, says his sister would "feel" as if she ought to write, and at once her hand simply obeyed the dictation. ELIZABETH CECILIA CLEPHANE NE of the most stirring gospel songs Ο of our era is "The Ninety-and Nine." It is not a church hymn, it cannot be employed in the stated services of the church, but it is a beautiful poem, and probably has made as much history during the past twenty-five years as any sacred solo that can be named. The story of the poem is of unusual interest. One morning in May, 1874, during Moody and Sankey's tour of evangelism in Great Britain, they were about to take a train at Glasgow for Edinburgh, when Mr. Sankey bought a copy of "The Christian Age," a London publication, in which he hoped to find some news from his homeland. After finishing the news, he found in the poet's corner of the paper, the following graphic poem on "The Lost Sheep": |