Christina Rossetti's last poem: "Sleeping at Last" or "Heaven Overarches"?

In 1896, two years after Christina Rossetti's death, her brother William Michael Rossetti published New Poems, a collection of his sister's previously unpublished or uncollected poems. Included in this collection are two that he identified as the very last his sister wrote: "Sleeping at Last" and "Heaven Overarches." The titles are William Michael's; Christina had left both untitled. After each poem, appears the date "circa 1893." "Heaven Overarches" concludes the section William titles "devotional poems" and "Sleeping at Last" concludes the section he titles "general poems." Importantly, in his editorial note to "Sleeping at Last," William also describes it as a "fitting close" to his sister's "poetic performance." Although Dorothy Stuart in 1930 and Margaret Sawtell in 1955 ignore this brotherly preference for "Sleeping at Last" and use "Heaven Overarches" to conclude their biographies of Rossetti, on the whole, Rossetti scholarship has followed William Michael's judgment. For example, in 1963, Lona Mosk Pa cker concludes her biography of Rossetti by quoting in full "Sleeping at Last," as does Georgina Battiscombe in 1981, and Kathleen Jones in 1991. (1) Other critics as well echo William in their descriptions of this poem. Jerome McGann, for example, refers to the lyric as Rossetti ' s "famous culminant lyric" (135), and Dolores Rosenblum describes "Sleeping at Last" as the poet's own "valediction" (211). Furthermore, despite Stuart's and Sawtell's efforts to draw attention to "Heaven Overarches," this other last poem has received little if any critical attention. Obviously, William Michael's opinion has had considerable influence on Rossetti scholarship. Yet thus far no close analysis of his preference for "Sleeping at Last" has been done. The purpose of this essay is to offer such an analysis by considering the context in which Rossetti's brother first read these two poems. Such contextualizing suggests that William Michael's judgment was influenced by his own sympathetic and yet troubled response to a belove d sister's breast cancer and a less than sympathetic response to her religious faith. Furthermore, recognizing the role Rossetti's illness and faith played in William Michael's preference for "Sleeping at Last" over "Heaven Overarches" not only sheds light on those scholarly readings that have followed his, but also suggests new possibilities for future interpretation.

Although William Michael places the approximate date of c. 1893 after both "Sleeping at Last" and "Heaven Overarches," in the editorial notes to New Poems he clearly indicates that he thinks "Sleeping at Last" should be read as the later of the two. Concerning this lyric of a sleeper lying in her grave he writes: I regard these verses (the title again is mine) as being the very last that Christina ever wrote; probably late in 1893, or it may be early in 1894. They form a very fitting close to her poetic performance, the longing for rest (even as distinguished from actual bliss in heaven) being most marked throughout the whole course of her writings. I found the lines after her death, and had the gratification of presenting them, along with the childish script of her very first verse "To my Mother,'" to the MS. Department of the British Museum. (New Poems 388)

This preference for regarding "Sleeping at Last" as the final poem is also revealed in his note to "Heaven Overarches": "I found these verses ["Heaven Overarches"] rather roughly written in a little memorandum-book. Their date must, I think, be as late as 1893; except 'Sleeping at Last' they appear to be about the last lines produced by my sister" (New Poems 392). William's reason, or at least part of his reason, for this dating of "Sleeping at Last" is indicated in the note, dated 1312/95, that he wrote on the back of the manuscript. However, again his wording indicates that he is in part guessing: "I found these verses at Christina's house in a millboard case containing some recent memoranda, et.--nothing of old date--the verse must I think I emphasis mine] be the last Christina ever wrote--perhaps late in 1893, or early 1894."

Unfortunately, William Michael does not record what else was in the millboard case that held the manuscript of "Sleeping at Last," and so we cannot consider all the evidence that he may have used to date the poem. We have available only the text of the poem itself and this manuscript. Both offer only hints as to date. First, the fact that "Sleeping at Last" is a roundel may indicate that it was written sometime after the publication in 1883 of Algernon Swinburne's Century of Roundels. Swinburne dedicated this volume to Rossetti, and she herself began writing roundels following Swinburne's particular variation on the form not long after this date. Time Flies, published in 1885, contains several, and numerous roundels are among the poems included in Rossetti's Face of the Deep, published in 1892. Second, the fact that the manuscript is a fair copy written in a steady hand provides something of an end date as to composition. Evidence indicates that Rossetti's handwriting seriously deteriorated during the last mo nths of her life. Margaret Sandars describes Rossetti's letter of 15 September 1894 to Frederick Shields as "shaky and rather illegible" (266); similarly, Jan Marsh describes a letter to Edmund McClure dated October 1894 as a "scrawl" (565). Thus the very precise penmanship of the "Sleeping at Last" manuscript places the composition of the poem at some point before the early autumn months of 1894. However, neither the roundel form nor the handwriting confirms William Michael's more precise date of "late in 1893, or early 1894."

Similarly, it is now impossible to consider all the clues William Michael used to date "Heaven Overarches"; however, the extant evidence in this case does actually date the poem as being one of the early 1890s. The manuscript of "Heaven Overarches," now held in the Princeton Library collection, is on a small sheet of paper that appears to have been taken out of the little memorandum book that William mentions. (2) On one side of this sheet is a mixture of brief notes, three of which contain dates: 27 October 1891. 23 November 1891, and 28 December 1891. On the other side, appear the lines that William Michael later titled "Heaven Overarches." They are in pencil with minor revisions in ink and appear on the right side of the page. On the left-hand side is a list of journal titles and book titles. Among these are the following: "Edinburgh Review--Poems' and "Verses SPCK." A review of Rossetti's volume Poems: New and Enlarged Edition did appear in the October 1893 issue of the Edinburgh Review, and Rossetti's v olume Verses was published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in September of 1893. Such surrounding bits of evidence suggest that William Michael's labeling of "Heaven Overarches" as c. 1893 and therefore one of the very last his sister wrote is perfectly reasonable. Yet, the reason that he would date it as most definitely before "Sleeping at Last" is not immediately clear, especially since the manuscript of "Sleeping at Last" offers none of the obvious references to dates found in the "Heaven Overarches" manuscript. When we focus more closely on the fact that William found "Sleeping at Last" not long after his sister's death (in his diary he gives the date 13 February 1895), possible reasons for his being disposed to see the poem as the very last she wrote become apparent. (3) First, although both "Sleeping at Last" and "Heaven Overarches" draw the reader to thoughts of the afterlife, "Sleeping at Last" speaks directly of a woman who has recently died:

Sleeping at last, the troubles and the tumult over,
Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past,
Cold & white out of sight of friend & of lover
Sleeping at last.

No more a tired heart downcast or overcast,
No more pangs that wring or shifting fears that hover,
Sleeping at last in a dreamless sleep locked fast.

Fast asleep. Singing birds in their leafy cover
Cannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast.
Under the purple thyme & the purpic clover
Sleeping at last.
                                        (Crump 3:340)

In reading this poem only five weeks after his sister's death, William likely read the "she" of the poem as Christina herself. Furthermore, while the apocalyptic image in "Heaven Overarches" of the night that "wrecks you and me" alludes to human suffering, "Sleeping at Last" makes daily human suffering a major focus. Thus, quite possibly William saw in the lines speaking of "the struggle and horror," and "shifting fears" something of the physical and mental suffering that his sister had endured during the long process of her dying.

As her death certificate indicates Rossetti died on the 29th December 1894 of "scirrhus of the breast." ("Cardiac failure" is also recorded but appears after "scirrhus" as if a secondary cause.) Significantly, beneath "scirrhus of the breast" is written "2 1/2 years operation 25, May 1892." Exactly when Rossetti knew of the cancer is not clear. However, William indicates in his diary entry for 26 May 1892 that she "had had ever since 29 December [1891] some idea of what was in prospect for her." Looking closely at William's response to this surgery reveals how much he perceived his sister's surgery and her slow dying as a "horror."

In his published memoirs, William Michael describes this operation as being of a "very severe kind" and a "truly formidable one" without elaborating (Poetical Works lix; Some Reminiscences 530). Only in a more private form, a letter to his wife Lucy, written just three days before this operation, does he reveal any details:

For some little while past, say 2 months, she [Christina] has been conscious at times of a certain sensation in the left breast: it has never once amounted to what she would call pain: and a double lump can be felt. She spoke to Stewart [Dr. William Edward Stewart], who has as yet treated the case with medicines, and she referred to cancer: he did nor definitely say that such it is, but she understands him to imply it. She is now told that severe pain may shortly be expected unless an operation is performed: so on Wednesday it is to be performed. (I presume the breast, or some large part of it, will be removed. The operator will be Lawson--whom Christina has already seen. ...Of course she contemplates immediate death as a possibility.

(Selected Letters 555)

In another letter to Lucy he indicates that the operation will take place in Christina's home at 2:30 in the afternoon and that the anesthesia used will be ether. He will be present in the house, although not in the room, at the time of the surgery (Selected Letters 556). In this letter he simply mentions "that shocking stage" when referring to the surgery itself. William consistently seems to avoid offering any details of Rossetti's surgery. In fact at times, he appears quite intentionally to avoid mentioning it. Even in letters to friends, whether male or female, he avoids even a vague mention to either breast cancer or this surgery. In a letter to Alice Boyd, dated 17 September 1894, he writes as follows:

"It is too true that she [Christina] is exceedingly ill--in fact she is undoubtedly dying, owning to a malady of the heart and other grave matters" (Selected Letters 574). In a letter dated 29 December 1894 to Theodore Watts-Dunton informing him of Christina's death, he again stresses the heart ailment: "Her illness was functional malady of the heart, with dropsy in left arm and hand: there was another matter, painful to dwell upon, which I leave in the background" (Letters 575). (4)

Clearly, William was deeply troubled by the nature of this other matter. He was, of course, not unusual in his reluctance to speak of breast cancer. Such reluctance lingered well into the twentieth century. Stanley Weintraub in The Four Rossettis, published in 1978, appears to be the first biographer to use the word "mastectomy when trying to decipher William's vague phrases regarding the operation (262). Previous to Weintraub, scholars were far more comfortable simply echoing William's "formidable" operation. For example, Dorothy Stuart refers only to a "formidable operation (159). Even Georgina Battiscombe in 1981 uses the same phrasing; no mention is made of the possible amputation of the breast (202). Only in the 1990s did Rossetti's biographers begin to state directly that Rossetti underwent a mastectomy, apparently basing that claim on William's letter to Lucy in which he mentions his assumption that the breast will be removed: Frances Thomas uses the word "mastectomy" in her 1992 biography (368), as d oes Jan Marsh in 1994 (563). Thus far, however, no biographer has offered much information on what this type of surgery meant in 1892. William's comment to his wife that Christina recognized that "immediate death" might result certainly reminds us that surgery in the late nineteenth century was not what it is today.

Although William's diary suggests that he was kept regularly informed by his sister's doctors regarding her health, he offers very few details of this surgery. In fact, the day after her surgery, 26 May 1892, he records the event in very vague terms: "A dreadful complication in Christina's condition came to a crisis yesterday." Importantly, however, in 1881 Dr. George Lawson, Rossetti's surgeon, delivered a paper before the Medical Society of London titled "On the Evil Results which Follow Partial Operations in Cases of Cancer of the Breast." This paper provides some information on the type of operation Rossetti most likely underwent and thus provides us with a sense of what William Michael might have known. In this paper, Lawson recommends not only removal of the breast but the tissue under the arm as well: "If a patient has a scirrhus of the breast, and it is decided that an operation shall be performed for its removal, the whole breast should be excised, and if there be enlarged glands in the axilla, thes e also should be taken away" (350). He argues that to remove just the tumor is "worse than useless," for such a limited procedure "stimulates the growth of the cancer and hastens the progress of the disease, instead of retarding it" (350). Although Lawson argues strongly for this radical surgery, he indicates that "a pause" of only 5-8 years in the disease's progress might be expected (351). Based on this paper, it seems quite likely that Rossetti agreed to the surgery not expecting a complete cure, but perhaps hoping for several more years of life. And as William's letter to Lucy suggests, Rossetti must have hoped to avoid severe pain. On the subject of pain, Lawson writes, "in some cases the cancer does not return in the same locality, but years subsequently there is a recurrence in some internal organ, and without suffering the patient dies. . . (350-51). Unfortunately, for Rossetti the operation brought neither the five to eight years of life nor a painless death.

Not quite a year later, on 3 March 1893, William Michael records in his diary: "seems only too certain cancer recurring." While at first it seems Rossetti experienced what she herself referred to as "trifling pain" (Family Letters 199), that was not the case by mid 1894. William's diary entry for 24 July 1894 reads: "Called on Christina, whose state is now one of considerable suffering, and I fear rapidly becoming critical." About three weeks later on August 15th he describes a dire situation that seems to distress him greatly: "Went to see Christina. She is now in bed, and I greatly fear will not rise again. Spoke to Stewart, who gives a very gloomy and alarming account of her condition. I don't care to enter in the details." At times the pain is controlled by drugs, for William occasionally records as he does for August 23 that Christina is "comparatively free from pain." And in Reminiscences, he mentions that during the last stages of the disease, "opiates, more especially solfanel, were freely administer ed" (2: 531). These "opiates,' however, seem not to have been administered at first or perhaps not in sufficient amounts to control the pain during the autumn months. On 15 September 1894, William writes, "I regret to say that her pain continues on the increase." And on October 6th he writes: "Saw Christina. She confesses now, but only if she is asked about it, to pain that must be called severe, especially in the left shoulder."

A letter William received from one of the Torrington street neighbors strongly suggests that the pain was indeed severe. At the very end of October, Charlotte Stopes wrote to William to complain about "distressing screams" she heard coming from Rossetti's drawing room: "Since my return (to 31 T Sq) on the 17th of Sept. I have been perfectly unable to work, from the distressing screams that sound clear from her drawing room to mine, especially at the hours I have hitherto devoted to writing, between 8 & 11 p. m. (Stopes). A second letter from Stopes, one dated November 4th, indicates that during the last week there had been "no long-continued fits of hysterical screaming" (Stopes). Exactly what occasioned the screams is now impossible to know for certain. As Jan Marsh suggests, it seems most likely that the cries were caused by physical pain, and that their cessation may indicate that William asked Dr. Stewart to increase the dosage of the opiates. However, Marsh also considers the possibility that mental dis tress played a role as well (566). Several weeks later on December 17th, William Michael describes his sister as "gloomy and distressed." Of course, this "gloom" may have been at least in part a side effect of the drugs being administered. In any case, clearly as William watched his sister die, he was witness to considerable suffering both physical and mental. Indeed, he has moments when he cannot imagine how she continues to live. On 15 November 1894, he writes in his diary: "Her condition of weakness and prostration is so extreme, and her voice so near to extinction, that I hardly understand how it could be possible for her to live more than a day or two."

Throughout Rossetti's illness from the surgery to her last days, William Michael was involved. As indicated above he was in the house when the surgery was performed: he regularly followed his sister's recovery from that surgery: and later when it was clear she was indeed dying, he faithfully visited her every other day for months before her death. Clearly being a witness to such suffering disturbed him deeply. In fact, his diary note for the day of her death is suggestive of his relief that she was no longer in pain: "My noble, admirable Christina passed away about 7:20 a. m. on Saturday (29). Far better so than that she should continue any longer in suffering of mind or of body." He then describes her actual death: "She gave one sigh, and so, in perfect peace, at last left us for ever [emphasis mine]." In a letter to Theodore Watts-Dunton, he writes similarly of the peace of her last moments: "My dear good Christina died this morning--most peacefully at the last" (Selected Letters 575). Years later when Will iam Michael describes first viewing his sister as she lay dead, he reveals his relief that the suffering did not, in a sense, show itself: "Her appearance as she lay lifeless was not so very greatly changed as the long duration and severe nature of her malady might have led one to dread" (Some Reminiscences 2: 533). He seems to have found some comfort in her calm appearance in death.

Significantly, "Sleeping at Last" is a poem in which the idea of death is comforting for the speaker, that is, for the one who now imagines the dead woman lying at peace in her grave. Appropriately, the key phrase of this roundel is strongly reminiscent of a lullaby. In fact, "Sleeping at Last" was used by Anna Montague as the title of a slumber song published in 1878. Certain lines of Rossetti's poem might easily be read as the expression of a parent relieved that a sick child is finally sleeping peacefully: "Singing birds in their leafy cover / Cannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast." The tone of "Sleeping at Last" is appropriate to one who has recently watched over a loved one's long illness.

William was not actually present at the moment of death, but apparently based his description of his sister's last hours on what was told him by Harriet Read, Rossetti's nurse-companion. Read records her own description of Christina's last day in a letter to Mrs. Hake: "[B]ut I would not wish her back. Poor darling she is at last with her dear Lord and all whom she loved so well, although she said several times in her illness she loved every body and was so fond of her god child Miss Ursula and wishes her well. I am sorry to say she was obliged to be fastened down the same night she died in the morning" (Read). Since Harriet Read told Rose Hake, a family friend, of the need to restrain Christina, it seems likely she conveyed this information to William Michael as well. The fact his diary makes no mention of this fastening down is not surprising since the diary was to be something of a public document: he published sections of it as an appendix to The Family Letters of Christina Rossetti. The image of his sist er having to be tied to the bed the night before her death is not an image he wants to offer the public. Rather it is the image depicted in "Sleeping at Last," an image of a woman whose suffering has now ended. William Michael's diary entry recording Rossetti's death offers further insight into why he favored "Sleeping at Last" over "Heaven Overarches," for it reveals something of his questions regarding the Christian belief in an afterlife. While Harriet Read speaks of Christina being with "her dear Lord," William sees her death more in terms of loss: she "left us for ever." Although William did not consider himself to be an atheist, he saw "theism" as an "unfathomable mystery" (Selected Letters 235). More specially, Christianity was not a religion he could at all embrace. He wrote to Mackenzie Bell not long after her death of these matters: "Deeply as I have always reverenced her [Christina's] attitude of soul on religious matters, I don't in the least share her form of belief--not partaking of the Christia n faith at all" (Selected Letters 578). Not surprisingly, the doctrine of hell was particularly problematic. In Reminiscences he writes of hell as "not a wholly comforting prospect," deciding that in comparison to such a possibility the "quiet expectation of extinction" is to be favored (534). Even the joyful side of Christian cosmology, a heaven where all the redeemed would be reunited with those loved on earth, was not something he could easily imagine. While he was willing to entertain the idea of "ghosts" in some form, he considered that the possibility of "personal immortality" was "exceedingly slender" (Selected Letters 443).

William's view that the "longing for rest" rather than the "bliss in heaven" characterized his sister's poetic performance is most likely due in part to his own doubts regarding such "bliss." Although Rossetti does indeed have numerous poems that speak of the rest to be found after death, poems of the "bliss" of heaven are also numerous. An entire section of her last collection Verses, a collection of devotional poems, is devoted to telling of such bliss: New Jerusalem and its Citizens. Significantly, when Christina wanted to dedicate Verses to her brother, he declined her offer because he did not "share the same beliefs in full" (Family Letters 193).

Considering that William was in a sense not fully responsive to his sister's devotional poetry, it is not at all surprising he favored "Sleeping at Last" over "Heaven Overarches." Unlike the speaker of "Sleeping at Last," the speaker of this other last poem directly calls the reader to remember Christ's promise of resurrection of the body and entrance of the redeemed into heaven:

Heaven overarchcs earth and sea,
 Earth-sadness and sea-bittcrness;
Heaven overarches you and me:
A little while, and we shall be
(Pleasc God) where there is no more sea
Or barren wilderness.

Heaven overarches you and me
 And all earths gardens and her graves
Look up with me, until we see
The day break and the shadows flee

What tho' tonight wrecks you and me,
If so tomorrow saves?

(Crump 3: 339)

The first stanza calls to mind the Chosen People of God trusting in His promises. The overarching heaven recalls thc rainbow of God's promise after the flood (Genesis 9:13), and the landscape of bitter sea and barren wilderness echoes Exodus 15:22-25. (Moses while leading his people through the wilderness first finds only the "bitter waters" to drink until God indicates that he must throw a tree into the waters to make them sweet.) Moreover, the second stanza serves to point to the promise of the New Testament. The fourth line of this stanza is taken directly from Song of Solomon 2:17: "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountain of Bether." The Song of Solomon is traditionally read by many Christians in terms of their belief in the Second Coming of Christ, and thus one can read "day break" as the day of that Second Coming, the day when the sorrows, "shadows," of this world would pass away.

Although William Michael respected his sister's faith, this call to hope in salvation would not have evoked a sympathetic response from him. William's agnosticism also well might have influenced how he interpreted the mental anguish Christina exhibited towards the end of her life. Although he allows for the effects of "opiates," as a possible explanation, he places more emphasis on her religion and what he appears to see as its failure to comfort (Reminiscences 2:532). In his 1904 memoir, he creates a disturbing image of the weeks before her death: "the terrors of her religion compassed her about, to the over clouding of its radiance" (Poetical Works lix). In Reminiscences, he again writes of her "troubles of soul," and he blames the clergyman Charles Gutch for increasing her fears, describing him as "foolish and unfeeling" (2:534). David Kent has convincingly challenged this view of Rossetti's death as one clouded by despair in his recent article "Christina Rossetti's Dying," reminding us that William's own agnosticism and anticlerical views might have "blinkered" his eyes (94). If William in some way blamed either the clergy or Rossetti's Christian faith for some of the distress he saw as she lay dying, all the more reason for him to, in a sense, resist "Heaven Overarches."

Although William Michael was certain both that "Sleeping at Last" was his sister's last poem and a fitting one to be used to bring closure to her "poetic performance," there is a slight sign that he feared that in giving it such prominence he might be misrepresenting her religious faith. In a collection of Rossetti's poems for Macmillan's Golden Treasury Series, a collection published in 1904, he includes a brief section titled "The Aspiration after Rest." Not surprisingly he places "Sleeping at Last" in this section. But importantly, he includes the following note: "As a subsidiary to the Devotional Poems come these few pieces in which an aspiration for rest after the turmoil of this mundane life is more marked than the yearning for heavenly bliss. As to these cognate topics, it may be remarked in general that Christina's poems contemplate (in accordance with a dominant form of Christian belief) 'an intermediate state' of perfect rest and inchoate beatific vision before the day of judgement and the resurrec tion of the body and sanctification in heaven" (ix). Clearly although he found "Sleeping at Last" to be a more appropriate closing poem for his sister than "Heaven Overarches," he did not want to create the impression that Christina did not believe in the resurrection from the dead.

Indeed, if one reads "Sleeping at Last" within a Christian framework, one sees inferred a divine presence that brings such sleep. For example, the comforting text Wisdom 3:1 comes to mind: "The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and there shall no torment touch them." And the tone of weariness is especially reminiscent of certain of the Psalms. For example, the "struggle & horror" of line three echoes slightly Psalm 55:5 in which the psalmist expresses his fear of death: "Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me and horror hath overwhelmed me." The "tired heart downcast or overcast" is a descriptive phrase that might be applied to the voice heard in several of the psalms. For example Psalm 42:5 speaks of the troubled soul: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?" Most significantly, however, the key word "sleep" brings to mind Psalm 127:2: "He giveth his beloved sleep." This biblical text recurs in Christian hymns and poetry. For example, Elizabeth Barrett Brow ning, a poet Rossetti much admired, uses it as both an epigraph and a refrain in her poem "The Sleep." Rossetti herself had used this biblical text in an earlier poem "When my heart is vexed I will complain," published in 1875. In this poem the line from Psalm 127 is spoken by Jesus:

Peace, peace: I give to my beloved sleep,
Not death but sleep, for love is strong as death:
Take patience; sweet thy sleep shall be,
Yea, thou shalt wake in Paradise with Me.

(Crump 1: 228)

One might argue, therefore, that although resurrection is not mentioned in "Sleeping at Last," it is implied if the poem is read with a Christian context in mind. Furthermore if one reads this poem in the context of other Rossetti poems that focus on the waiting time before resurrection, one might not imagine this sleeping person as entirely without some awareness of the spiritual realm. Elsewhere in Rossetti's poetry on death, she reveals that she was able to represent in one poem two spaces for the dead: the grave with the body lying at rest beneath the earth, and a place above the stars in a twilight world of paradise where the soul might be singing. For example, in "Better So" the person who has died is described as "fast asleep" with a "heart at rest," and yet the speaker states, "angels sing around thy singing soul" (Crump 3:283). In "Let them rejoice in their beds," Rossetti depicts the dead both "underneath the daisies" and "far above the stars" (Crump 2:286).

William's editorial decision, however, to place "Sleeping at Last" in the general section of Rossetti's poems rather than devotional while understandable, since no direct mention is made of a Christian heaven, tends to discourage any reading that might see the grave as merely a part of a larger spiritual landscape. Thus far critics have tended to follow his primarily secular reading of the poem by arguing that the poem is one about the sorrows of this life and a desire to escape those sorrows. Moreover, critics have also tended to employ the biographical approach suggested by William's linking of the poem with Rossetti's last days. For example, Margaret Sandars suggests that the poem reveals that Rossetti herself as she neared death was "utterly weary" (268). Eleanor Thomas offers a similar reading, seeing in the poem Rossctti's "longing for a culmination which would end not only months of utter weariness and recurrent pain but also years of ill health, of mental conflict, of conscious separation from loved ones" (117). Similarly, the three biographers who use the poem as closure, Lona Mosk Packer, Georgina Battiscombe, and Kathleeen Jones, also interpret "Sleeping at Last" as an expression of Rossetti's own longing for the rest of death after a painful life. Jones, for example, argues that by the end of Rossetti's life the 'external existence of religious ritual, conformity and submission' had "won" and that "Sleeping at Last" is proof that when dying Rossetti viewed death "not as a triumph but as a release" (232-233). As these readings suggest, there is a tendency to read the poem not simply as a fitting close to her months of painful dying but as fitting close to the whole life. Furthermore, the whole life is read as William read her death; in other words, the implication is made that Rossetti's faith somehow failed her.

No critic, as far as I know, has yet even entertained the idea that in "Sleeping at Last" Rossetti is writing about someone else. Yet the speaker of "Sleeping at Last" need not be seen to be writing about her own death. There is a slight tone of detachment that suggests a distance between speaker and the "cold & white" corpse, as if the poem is to be read at the graveside. Indeed, Rossetti's lyric is reminiscent of Shakespeare's "Fear no more the feat of the sun," the song from the grave scene in Cymbeline. If William's supposition that the poem might be as late as 1894 is correct, then something of Rossetti's awareness of her own approaching death certainly may be reflected in the subject and tone of the poem. However, it is quite possible that someone else's death actually provided the occasion for writing the poem. For example, William's wife Lucy died in April of 1894 after a long period of illness. Perhaps Lucy was in Rossetti's thoughts as she composed this poem of the sleeper "out of sight of friend & of lover."

Despite the need to consider both "Sleeping at Last" and "Heaven Overarches" for more than the autobiographical impulse, quite likely the use of these lyrics as closing poems for Rossetti's life and/or poetic work will continue. This seems especially likely in the case of "Sleeping at Last." When a selection of Rossetti poems is included in an anthology of British poetry "Sleeping at Last" often appears as the final poem. Such is the case in the most recent edition of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Victorian Anthology edited by Dorothy Mermin and Herbert Tucker, published in 2002, and The Longman Anthology of British Literature, published in 2003. On the other hand, "Heaven Overarches" is not even included in these anthologies. Clearly, William Michael's preference for "Sleeping at Last" as the poem to bring closure to his sister's "poetic performance" still influences contemporary scholarship. Perhaps as more attention is drawn to Rossetti's religious poetry, "Heaven Overarches" will begin to ap pear in the privileged position of last poem.

In either case, whether "Sleeping at Last" or "Heaven Overarches" is seen as Rossetti's valediction, we need to keep in mind William Michael's role in dating these poems, especially in terms of "Sleeping at Last." Second, if we are going to continue to read either poem biographically, we should use the evidence we do have to place the poems more precisely in terms of the life. For example, if we are connecting these poems to Rossetti's last illness, we should be more specific about that illness and the treatment she had undergone. Although William Michael was vague on this point, there is no need for scholars to follow his reticence. Furthermore, recognizing the ways in which both brotherly grief and religious doubt influenced William's response to these last poems should serve as a caution. For whether we use "Sleeping at Last" or "1-leaven Overarches" as closure for Rossetti's life or work, the choice we make will reflect our purposes and perceptions. For example, if we wish to stress a world-weariness hear d in many of Rossetti's poems, then "Sleeping at Last" with its image of the sleep of death might seem more appropriate than "Heaven Overarches" with its call to look beyond gardens and graves. However, if we wish to depict Rossetti as an important religious poet for the Victorian Age, then "Heaven Overarches" might appear to be the better choice. In either case, the poem we select may function more as our last statement to Rossetti than her last statement to us.

(1.) The most recent biographics of Rossetti do not mention either "Sleeping at Last" or "Heaven Overarches," although the convention of concluding with a poem is still followed. Frances Thomas chooses "My harvest is done, its promise is ended" to conclude her 1992 biography Christina Ross as does Jan Marsh to conclude Christina Rossetti: a Writer's Life published in 1994.

(2.) R. W. Crump also lists a "fair copy" of "Heaven Overarches" as being held in the Botlelian Library collection however, Steven Tomlinson of the Bodel ian Library has informed me that there is no record of this fair copy ever having been a part of the Bodeian collection. Unfortunately. I have been unable to locate its shereabouts and have therefore been unable to examine it.

(3.) All quotations from in William Michael Rossetti's s diary are taken from the manuscript new held in The University of British Columbia Library in the Angeli-Dennis Collection.

(4.) The dropsy william refers to in this letter may have been the result of the breast surgery. Lymphodema, a swelling of the arm and hand, sometimes results after a radical mastectomy.

Works Cited

Battiscombe, Georgina. Christina Rossetti: A Divided London: Constable, 1981.

Crump, R. W., ed. The Complete Poems of Ghristina Rossetti. 3 vols. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1979-1990.

Jones, Kathleeen. Learning Not to Be First: The Life of christina Rossetti. Gloucestershire: The Windrush Press, 1991.

Kent. David A. "Christina Rossetti's Dying." The Journal of PreRaphaetite Studies 5 (Fall 1996): 83-97.

Lawson, George. "On the Evil Results which Follow Partial Operations in Cases of Cancer of the Breast." Proceedings of The Medical Society of London. Eds. Thomas Gilbart-Smith and Edmund Owen. London, 1881. 349-353.

Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti: A Literary Biography. London: Jonathan Cape, 1994.

McGann, Jerome. "The Religious Poetry of Christina Rossetti." Critical Inquiry 10 (1983): 127-144.

Packer, Lena Mosk. Christina Rossetti. Berkeley: U of California P. 1963.

Read, Harriet. Letter to Mrs. M. R. D. Hake. 4 January 1895. Additional MSS 49470 f198. British Lib., London.

Rosenblum, Dolores. Christina Rossetti: The Poetry of Endurance. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1986.

Rossetti, Christina. The Family Letters of Christina Georgina Rossetti. Ed. William Michael Rossetti. 1908. New York: Haskell House, 1968.

__________. "Sleeping at Last." Additional MSS 34813, folio 42-41v. British Lib., London.

__________. "Heaven Overarches." Box 1, folder 8. Rossetti Collection of Janet Camp Troxell. Princeton University Library, Princeton.

Rossetti, William Michael. "The Diaries of William Michael Rossetti." Angeli-Dennis Collection. University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

__________. ed. New Poems, Hitherto Unpublished or Uncollected. London: Macmillan, 1896.

__________. ed. Poems of Christina Rossetti. London: Macmillan, 1904.

__________. ed. The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti with a Memoir and Notes by William Michael Rossetti. London: Macmillan, 1904.

__________. Selected Letters of William Michael Rossetti. Ed. Roger W. Peattie. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1990.

__________. Some Reminiscences. 2 vols. 1906. New York: AMS Press, 1970.

Sawtell, Margaret. Christina Rossetti: Her Life and Religion. London: A. R. Mowbray, 1955.

Sandars, Mary. Christina Rossetti. London: Hutchinson, 1930.

Stopes, Charlotte. Letter to William Michael Rossetti. 31 October 1894. Angeli-Dennis Collection. University of British Columbia Library, Vancouver.

__________. Letter to William Michael Rossetti. 4 November 1894. Angeli-Dennis Collection. University of British Columbia Library, Vancouver.

Stuart, Dorothy Margaret. Christina Rossetti. London: Macmillan, 1930.

Thomas, Eleanor. Christina Georgina Rossetti. New York: Columbia UP, 1931.

Thomas, Frances. Christina Rossetti. Hanley Swan, Worcester: Self-Help Publishing Association, 1992.

Weintraub, Stanley. The Four Rossettis: A Victorian Biography. London: W. H. Allen, 1978.