MISS ROSSETTI'S LAST VOLUME.* IT is curious to note how

widely divergent in the main was the undoubted poetical genius of Christina Rossetti from that of her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Each was alike possessed of a glowing imagination and power and facility of expres- sion, though that of the brother was perhaps the more remark- able ; both alike saw in the material facts and conditions by which they were surrounded symbols bearing another and more mystic meaning ; but while the brother's genius rarely rises above a beautifully and vividly expressed, but too often voluptuous love and yearning for the material and sensuous side of life and love, the sister's whole mind and nature is con- centrated upon the higher spiritual side of this life and love, a part of which only is to be fully attained in the present world. Therefore it is that while her brother's poems will be admired more or less by all genuine and catholic admirers of poetry, even though there mingle with that admiration a regret that his powers were dedicated to what at the best is but a fleeting phase of this world, and too often not even to its noblest side, the sister's poems will, we think, have a more lasting place in the hearts and minds of a far larger number of her country- men and women.

Still for all the wide divergence between the individual out- look upon life of the brother and sister, there are echoes and faint suggestions now and again in her poems which indicate that had she wished she could equally well with her brother have expressed his passionate love and yearning for a purely human affection, save that in her case it quickly merges itself in obedience to a higher and more exacting law. The sonnet called "A Triad," for instance, which was published in the first edition of The GoWn Market, and other Poems, but was withdrawn by her in the later issues of the volume, from apparently conscientious motives, might in its somewhat voluptuous and forcible expression have been written by him. Instead of quoting that, however, we prefer to give the following beautiful sonnet, headed "A Pause," which is quite in her own style of chastened passion, and worthy, to our minds, to be placed among the best she has written :—

" They made the chamber sweet with flowers and leaves, And the bed sweet with flowers on which I lay; While my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way.

I did not hear the birds about the eaves, Nor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves : Only my soul kept watch from day to day, My thirsty soul kept watch for one away :— Perhaps he loves, I thought, remembers, grieves.

• New POIMI Ly Chti.tina it■seetti. Hitherto Unpah'ished Or Uncollected. Ed ted by Wil lam Elichae* We cci. 1.e.,tdon and New York : Matraillan and Co

At length 'there came a step upon the stair, Upon the lock the old familiar hand : Then first my spirit seemed to scent the air Of Paradise ; then first the tardy sand Of time ran golden ; and I felt my hair Put on a glory, and my soul expand." (p. 70.)

At the end of this volume Mr. Rossetti has given us a selection of his sister's juvenile poems, which were written in the years before she attained the age of seventeen. They are interesting chiefly as showing the unmistakeable promise of the future poetess, and even thus early the strong religious and sanewhat desponding bent of her mind. In an imagina- tive poem—" The Dead City "—there is a description of various fruits which might well bear comparison with the well-known one of the little people's luscious and tempting wares in the "Goblin Market." Here, too, are early evi- dences of her love of, and power of describing, the earth's natural beauties,—its beauties of flowers and trees, of light and atmosphere,—a power which was later to enable her to produce such a verse as this :— "Is the day wearing towards the West ?

Far off cool shadows pass, A visible refreshment Across the sultry grass : Far off low mists are mustering, A broken, shifting mass." (p. 212.)

Here, too, is evidence of her vivid imagination which could be almost elfish, or powerfully dramatic, or even at times very weird and gruesome, as the verses called "A Chilly Night" (not taken from among the juvenilia) will clearly demonstrate :— "I rose at the dead of night,

And went to the lattice alone To look for my Mother's ghost Where the ghostly moonlight shone.

My friends had failed one by one, Middle-aged, young, and old, Till the ghosts were warmer to me Than my friends that had grown cold.

I looked and I saw the ghosts Dotting plain and mound : They stood in the blank moonlight, But no shadow lay on the ground : They spoke without a voice And they leaped without a sound.

I called : • 0 my Mother dear,'— I sobbed : • 0 my Mother kind, Make a lonely bed for me And shelter it from the wind :' Tell the others not to come To see me night or day : But I need not tell my friends To be sure to keep away.'

My Mother raised her eyes,

They were blank and could not see : Yet they held me with their stare, While they seemed to look at me.

She opened her mouth and spoke, I could not hear a word, While my flesh crept on my bones And every hair was stirred.

She knew that I could not hear The message that she told, Whether I had long to wait Or soon should sleep in the mould: I saw her toss her shadowless hair And wring her hands in the cold.

I strained to catch her words, And she strained to make me hear; But never a sound of words Fell on my straining ear.

From midnight to the cockcrow I kept my watch in pain, While the subtle ghosts grew subtler In the sad night on the wane.

From midnight to the cockcrow I watched till all were gone, Some to sleep in the shifting sea And some under turf and stone : Living had failed and dead had failed, And I was indeed alone." (p. 96.)

Varied as was Miss Rossetti's range, still here, as in her other poems, the dominant note is one of depression, though never of despair, of a deep and abiding sense of the manifold trials and disappointments of life, and a longing to be relieved from the ceaseless strain and effort of living, sustained though she was by an intense and genuine faith. The sonnet entitled "Who have a form of Godliness" will perhaps best illustrate in the smallest space this attitude of her mind :—

"When I am sick and tired it is God's will: Also God's will alone is sure and best :— So in my weariness I find my rest, And so in poverty I take my fill.

Therefore I see my good in midst of ill,

Therefore in loneliness I build my nest,

And through hot noon pant toward the shady west,

And hope in sickening disappointment still. So, when the times of restitution come,

The sweet times of refreshing come at last, My God shall fill my longings to the brim .

Therefore I wait and look and long for Him : Not wearied, though the work is wearisome, Nor fainting, though the time be almost past." (g. 216.)

It could hardly be expected that just the gleanings of Miss Rossetti's note-books, and the, till now, uncollected poems scattered through various magazines, should add to her assured fame as a poetess, but at any rate, unlike too many posthumous collections, this which her brother has just given to the public will in no way detract from it. Needing slight revision, as some of the poems do still, the old charm of thought and diction is here, and the same serious habit of mind which looks at the actual facts and conditions of this life through the medium of a vivid faith in a higher one to come, which has its beginnings even here.