Mary's Girlhood (for a Picture)

By Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828–1882

This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect

God's Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she

Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee.

Unto God's will she brought devout respect,

Profound simplicity of intellect,

And supreme patience. From her mother's knee

Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity;

Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect.

So held she through her girlhood; as it were

An angel-water'd lily, that near God

Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home,

She woke in her white bed, and had no fear

At all,—yet wept till sunshine, and felt aw'd:

Because the fulness of the time was come.

Biography

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was born 12 May 1828 in London, the second child and eldest son of Italian expatriates. His father, Gabriele Rossetti, was a Dante scholar, who had been exiled from Naples for writing poetry in support of the Neapolitan Constitution of 1819. Rossetti’s mother had trained as a governess and supervised her children's early education. Few Victorian families were as gifted as the Rossettis: the oldest child, . . .

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