THE FRONT PORCH COLLECTION 4

Another volume plucked from the

sun-basked window sill in my Front Porch.

SONNET

The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept

And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may

Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,

Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.

He leaned above me, thinking that I slept

And could not hear him; but I heard him say:

"Poor child, poor child:" and as he turned away

Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept.

He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold

That hid my face, or take my hand in his,

Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head:

He did not love me living; but once dead

He pitied me; and very sweet it is

To know he still is warm though I am cold.

Christina Rossetti

Rossetti was born in London in 1830 and during her early years educated at home by her mother. In the 1840s her family was stricken with severe financial difficulties due to the deterioration of her father's physical and mental health. When she was 14, Rossetti suffered a nervous breakdown which was followed by bouts of depression and related illness. Rossetti began writing at age 7 but she was 31 before her first work was published — Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862). Rossetti continued to write and publish for the rest of her life although she focused primarily on devotional writing and children's poetry.Rossetti's deeply religious temperament left its marks on her writing. She was a devout High Anglican, much influenced by the Tractarian, or Oxford, Movement. Rossetti broke engagement to the artist James Collison, an original member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, when he joined the Roman Catholic church. She also rejected Charles Bagot Cayley for religious reasons. She maintained a large circle of friends and for ten years volunteered at a home for prostitutes. In 1893 Rossetti developed cancer and Graves' disease then died the following year due to the cancer on December 29, 1894
In 'After Death', which she wrote in 1849, the poet-speaker lays on a bed, with a shroud on her face, observing the surroundings before the burial. "He did not love me living; but once dead / He pitied me; and very sweet it is / To know
he still is warm tho' I am cold."