When it comes to poetic themes, it is difficult to beat really good "poems about impending death." And no one ever wrote better ones than the melancholy, deeply religious Christina Rossetti, who was described by Louis Untermeyer as "one of the three great women lyricists who wrote in English . . . the forerunner of a generation of women who learned from her the art of keeping expression simple and intense."

As I said in the essay on Ms. Rossetti's wonderful poem Amor Mundi, the first time her work appeared in these pages, she was a special person, coming from a remarkable family of creative artists. Her life was an unhappy one though, marked by two tragic love affairs (ended by her because of her "religious scruples") and ill health in her later years. Yet, almost 100 years after her death she is still revered by poetry lovers all over the world, me included, and her work is described with great praise in the authoritative Cambridge Guide to Literature in English as "remarkable for its love of verbal invention and of metrical experiment." To which is added:

In both her religious and her secular poetry she shows a keen interest in natural, pictorial imagery, while her addresses to an unnamed lover or suitor suggest both a determination and a carefully controlled ambiguity. Her delicate, frank meditations on death and Heaven are balanced by the imaginative vigour of poems like Goblin Market.

I will, God willing, return to Ms. Rossetti's work again in these pages, although it is unlikely that I will feature Goblin Market, it being much too long for this format. It is, however, a wonderful, stirring poem about faith, sin and redemption, which you can find, if you choose, at users.crocker.com/~lwm/goblin.html. For now, however, please enjoy (or shed a tear over, if you must) these two great poems by Christina Rossetti.