SOURCE: "Christina G. Rossetti," in The Catholic World, Vol. IV, No. 24, March, 1867, pp. 839-46.

In the following review of the verses collected in Poems, the anonymous critic analyzes the defects in Rossetti's poetry.

We had heard some little of Miss Rossetti, in a superficial way, before reading this her book. Various verses of hers had met our eye in print, and if they themselves left no very decided mark upon the memory, yet we had the firm impression, somehow, that she was one more of the rising school of poets. Accordingly we thought it well to take a retrospect of a few post-Tennysonians—Mrs. Browning, Owen Meredith, Robert Buchanan, Jean Ingelow, and so on—supposed fellow disciples—so as to be tolerably sure of ranking the new-comer rightly. On reading this volume we find our labor lost through an entirely unforeseen circumstance. Unfortunately, it does not appear that...