Who Has Seen the Wind?
By Christina Rossetti
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
Jamin Still hastily created this little tree bending in the wind. I can’t wait for his debut picture book, coming to Kickstarter very soon. I’ve read it and seen (some of) the art. It’s amazing. Keep an eye out!
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Back to the poem. This is one of our family’s favorites. We have read it hundreds of times (along with many more of Christina Rossetti’s poems) to each of our four children. Rossetti’s poems roll off the tongue so easily, are notably simple and accessible. But they are often quite profound. In the Victorian era, Christina and her three siblings were home-schooled by their mother, a brilliant English-Italian woman. Her father was a Dante scholar who immigrated to England from Italy. Before she was old enough to write, she composed her first verse, “Cecilia never went to school / Without her gladiator.” Christina was a fiery youth whose temper was subdued as she grew older, but whose lyrical gifts only burned brighter and brighter. She was a devout Christian, and more than half of her writing is devotional. She is one of the most celebrated poets of the Victorian era.
Christina Rosetti (1830–1894)
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