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GREEN GRACE:CHRISTINA ROSSETTI’S ECOLOGICAL VISION

Emma Mason, University of Warwick

‘Poetry lends religion her wealth of symbols and similes; religion restores them again to poetry, clothed with so splendid a radiance that they appear to be no longer symbols, but … the nature of sacraments’

- John Keble, Lectures on Poetry, vol II, 481

‘And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind . . . For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another’.

- Romans 12. 2-5

In like manner, St. Peter’s admonition, 2 Ep. iii. 18. Grow in grace (en chariti) and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, must be supposed to extend to every Christian, and consequently the word grace to refer to the ordinary inspiration of the spirit of God, as distinguished from His extraordinary and miraculous gifts. There are several other passages wherein (charis) grace must be understood to include the like sanctifying influences of the holy spirit, as mentioned in Acts xi. 23. Eph. iv. 7.

- The Churchman’s Monthly Magazine, 1.10 (1804)

‘all things work together for good to them that love God’

- Rossetti, Seek and Find (1879), p. 79

Leaf from leaf Christ knows;Himself the Lily and the Rose: Sheep from sheep Christ tells;Himself the Shepherd, no one else: Star and star He names,Himself outblazing all their flames: (ll. 1-6)

- from, Verses (1893)

‘Deity is in everything, penetrating it, embracing it, and seated in it’

- Gregory of Nyssa, Great Catechism 

‘‘not order in general but the blending of opposites into a harmonious whole that would have never happened spontaneously [without the] power of a Creator’ ’

- Gregory of Nyssa, Inscription on the Psalms 

‘the inspired Scripture attributes wings to God . . . human nature also was created with wings . . . his lapse into sin deprived us of these wings, for once we had left the shelter of the wings of God, we were denuded of our own wings. It was for this reason, therefore, that “the grace of God appeared enlightening us, in order that we might put aside impiety and earthly desires and so might through piety and justice, again grow wings”’

- Gregory of Nyssa, In Canticum canticorum

‘I begin to understand how this popular saint who had only lived for the poor, who preached in their language, was truly the father of painting, as well as of all eloquence, and all Italian poetry’

- Frédéric Ozanam, 1847

William Blake, ‘To Thomas Butts’ (1800)

The light of the morningHeaven’s mountains adorning:In particles bright,The jewels of lightDistinct shone and clear.Amaz’d and in fearI each particle gazèd,Astonished, amazèd;For each was a ManHuman-form’d

(ll. 13-22).

‘in opposition to nascent capitalism refused every instrumental discipline, and in opposition to the mortification of the flesh (in poverty and in the constituted order), he posed a joyous life, including all of being and nature, the animals, sister moon, brother sun, the birds of the field, the poor and exploited humans, together against the will of power and corruption’

- Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (2000)

‘in us by grace and mayest make us come to Thy Kingdom, where there is the clear vision of Thee, the perfect love of Thee, the blessed company of Thee . . . rejoicing in the good of others as in our own and compassionating in troubles and giving offence to no one’

- ‘Praises’, in Prayers of St Francis, trans. Paschal Robinson (1905)

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 slow loss,And yet not weep? Not so those women loved  Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;  Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;Not so the thief was moved; Not so the Sun and Moon  Which hid their faces in a starless sky,A horror of great darkness at broad noon—  I, only I. Yet give not o’er,  But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;Greater than Moses, turn and look once more  And smite a rock.

- also pub. in The Prince’s Progress (1866)

I walked among the shadows;While the ancient forest treesTalked together in the breeze;In the breeze that waved and blew them,With a strange weird rustle thro' them.

Said the oak unto the othersIn a leafy voice and pleasant:“Here we all are equal brothers,“Here we have nor lord nor peasant.“Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring,“Pass in happy following.“Little winds may whistle by us,“Little birds may overfly us;

“But the sun still waits in heaven“To look down on us in splendour;“When he goes the moon is given,“Full of rays that he doth lend her:“And tho' sometimes in the night“Mists may hide her from our sight,“She comes out in the calm weather,“With the glorious stars together.”

‘The Trees’ Counselling’, ll. 4-24