th the
grief of the lover an earth, and I determined to reverse the
conditions, and give utterance to the yearnings of the loved one in
heaven."

His Blessed Damozel, wearing a white rose, "Mary's gift," leaning out
from the gold bar of heaven, watching with sad eyes, "deeper than the
depth of waters stilled at even," for the coming of her lover, has
left a lasting impression on many readers. Simplicity, beauty, and
pathos are the chief characteristics of this poem, which, like
Bryant's _Thanatopsis_, was written by a youth of eighteen.

Painting was the chief work of Rossetti's life, but he wrote many
other poems. Some of the most characteristic of these are the two
semi-ballads, _Sister Helen_ and _The King's Tragedy, Rose Mary,
Love's Nocturn_, and _Sonnets_.

One of the earliest of these Sonnets, _Mary's Girlhood_, describes the
child as:--

"An angel-watered lily, that near God
Grows and is quiet."

His sister, Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), the author of much
religious verse, shows the unaffected naturalness of the new movement.
This stanza from her _Amor Mundi_ (_Love of the World_) is
characteristic:--

"So they two went together in glowing August weather,
The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right;
And dear she was to doat on, her swift feet seemed to float on
The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight."

William Morris (1834-1896), Oxford graduate, decorator,
manufacturer, printer, and poet, was born near London. He was
fascinated by _The Blessed Damozel_, and his first and most poetical
volume, _The Defence of Guinevere and Other Poems_ (1858), shows
Rossetti's influence. The simplicity insisted on by the new school is
evident in such lines as these from _Two Red Roses across the Moon_:--

"There was a lady lived in a hall,
Large in the eyes and slim and tall;
And ever she sung from noon to noon,
Two red roses across the moon."

Morris later wrote a long series of narrative poems, called _The
Earthly Paradise_ (1868-1870) and an epic, _Sigurd the Volsung_
(1876). He turned from Pre-Raphaelitism to become an earnest social
reformer.

In literature, the Pre-Raphaelite movement disdained the old
conventions and started a miniature romantic revival, which emphasized
individuality, direct expression, and the use of simple words. Its
influence soon became merged in that of the earlier and far greater
romantic school.

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAU