Christina Rossetti, “Good Friday”
My two favourite poets of the Victorian era are Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) and Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). Both wrote poems that offer tremendous devotional avenues. Here is Rossetti’s “Good Friday,” which was published in her 1866 collection The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems. Pace those who have seen in this poem the challenge to faith that a number of Victorian intellectuals experienced, I think it bears witness to a faith both thick and deep: Good Friday Am I a stone, and not a sheep, That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross, To number drop by drop Thy blood’s...