Shall I meet other wayfarers at night, Those who have gone before? Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? They will not keep you standing at that door. Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? Of labour you shall find the sum. Will there be beds for me and all who seek? Yea, beds for all who come. But this bitterness is not enduring. From the first, even in what we may call her Pagan days, the sense of responsibility and deliberate choice had been hers. We venture to quote the noble allegory, "A Triad," omitted, in some vigorous revulsion of spirit, from her later writings: Three sang of love together, one with lips Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow, Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips; And one there sang who, soft and smooth as snow, Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show; And one was blue with famine after love, Who, like a harpstring snapped, rang harsh and low The burden of what those were singing of. One shamed herself in love; one temperately Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife; One famished, died for love. Thus two of three Took death for love, and won him after strife. One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee; All on the threshold, yet all short of life. Into the service, then, of her religion, Miss Rossetti brought all the passionate fervour of her unsatisfied heart, all her intense enthusiasm after art, and passed steadily, we believe, to the forefront of all English religious poetry. She had not, perhaps, the curious felicity of George Herbert, but, on the other hand, she had the balanced simplicity that stepped clear of his elaborate conceit, the desperate euphuism of Crashaw, and even the pathetic refinement of Henry Vaughan. Again, her passionate imagery put her ahead of the soft beauty of Keble, too apt to degenerate into a honied domesticity; above the pensive richness of Charles Wesley, whose Puritan outlook made his hand unsure; above even the divine ardour of Newman, whose technical dogmatism and paucity of human experience limited his range. With Miss Rossetti it was as the strong man armed, in the Gospel parable. When the stronger victor came, the spoil was annexed, and the ancient pride of defence was applied by a more dexterous hand. Can there be found in the rank of English religious poetry two more majestic lyrics than A BETTER RESURRECTION. I have no wit, no words, no tears; My heart within me like a stone Is numbed too much for hopes or fears. Look right, look left, I dwell alone; I lift mine eyes, but, dimmed with grief, No everlasting hills I see; My life is in the falling leaf. O Jesus, quicken me.