A Portrait by Christina Georgina Rossetti
A woman renounces beauty and earthly comforts, devoting herself to prayer, fasting, and care for the poor out of love for Christ. As friends kneel by her deathbed, she welcomes heaven, and the speaker pictures her joining the saints in Paradise.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Sonnet, Religious Poetry · 352 words
First lines
I.
She gave up beauty in her tender youth, / Gave all her hope and joy and pleasant ways; / She covered up her eyes lest they should gaze / On vanity, and chose the bitter truth. / Harsh towards herself, towards others full of ruth, / Servant of servants, little known to praise, / Long prayers and fasts trenched on her nights and days: / She schooled herself to sights and sounds uncouth, / That with the poor and stricken she might make / A home, until the least of all sufficed / Her wants; her own self learned she to forsake, / Counting all earthly gain but hurt and loss. / So with calm will she chose and bore the cross, / And hated all for love of Jesus Christ.
Genres
- Sonnet — Two rhymed fourteen-line sections portray the woman's life of self-denial and her final moments.
- Religious Poetry — Her sacrifices express love for Jesus Christ, and her death is presented as a passage to the saints in Paradise.
Tags
Christian devotion · self-denial · care for the poor · prayer and fasting · deathbed · Paradise · sonnets
What this Textopian page supports
A Portrait is listed on Textopian as a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Sonnet, Religious Poetry
- Length: 352 words
- Structure: 1 section, 4 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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