Tea at Trianon: Christina Rossetti

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Christina Rossetti

The Pre-Rapahelite movement and Catholicism.

Christina Rossetti, the pre-Raphaelite poet and sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the movement's founders, was born on December 5, 1830. She is best known for her book of poetry Goblin Market and Other Poems, published in 1862 and for two Christmas Carols: "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "Love Came Down at Christmas":

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and Angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love Incarnate, Love Divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.
(Read entire post.)

Enso said...: You can find some new songs created on Christina Rossetti's poetry.

http://www.jamendo.com/fr/track/923240/in-your-bliss-acoustic; May 21, 2012 at 5:45:00 AM EDT
David C Brown said...: Beautiful simplicity!; May 27, 2013 at 3:04:00 PM EDT