ife's darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing?

And, beautiful as this is, is not the imagery of the closing lines a
little more deliberate than we are conscious of in the great work of the
great singers? One never feels that the leaves and the winds in
themselves were sufficiently full of meaning and delight for Rossetti.
He loved them as pictorial properties--as a designer rather than a poet
loves them.

In his use of the very mysteries of Christianity, he is intoxicated
chiefly by the beauty of the designs by which the painters have
expressed their vision of religion. His _Ave_ is a praise of the beauty
of art more than a praise of the beauty of divinity. In it we are told
how, on the eve of the Annunciation,

Far off the trees were as pale wands,
Against the fervid sky: the sea
Sighed further off eternally
As human sorrow sighs in sleep.

The poem is not a hymn but a decorated theme. And yet there is a
sincere vain-longing running through Rossetti's work that keeps it from
being artificial or pretentious. This was no less real for being vague.
His work is an attempt to satisfy his vain-longing with rites of words
and colour. He always sought to bring peace to his soul by means of
ritual. When he was dying, he was anxious to see a confessor. "I can
make nothing of Christianity," he said, "but I only want a confessor to
give me absolution for my sins." That was typical of his attitude to
life. He loved its ceremonies more--at least, more vividly--than he
loved its soul. One is never done hearing about his demand for
"fundamental brainwork" in art. But his own poetry is poor enough in
brainwork. It is the poetry, of one who, like Keats, hungered for a
"life of sensations rather than of thoughts." It is the poetry of grief,
of regret--the grief and regret of one who was a master of sensuous
beauty, and who reveals sensuous beauty rather than any deeper secret
even in touching spiritual themes. Poetry with him is a dyed and
embroidered garment which weighs the spirit down rather than winged
sandals like Shelley's, which set the spirit free.

Yet his influence on art and literature has been immense. He, far more
than Keats or Swinburne, was the prophet of that ritualism which has
been a; dominant characteristic in modern poetry, whether it is the
Pagan ritualism of Mr. Yeats or the Catholic ritualism of Francis
Thompson. One