Unto my lips dost evermore present,
Clothed with his fire, thy heart his testament;
Whom I have neared and felt thy breath to be
The inmost incense of his sanctuary;
Who without speech hast owned him, and, intent
Upon his will, thy life with mine hast blent,
And murmured, "I am thine, thou'rt one with me!"
O what from thee the grace, for me the prize,
And what to Love the glory,—when the whole
Of the deep stair thou tread'st to the dim shoal
And weary water of the place of sighs,
And there dost work deliverance, as thine eyes
Draw up my prisoned spirit to thy soul!"
Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), better known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was an English poet, artist, and translator. He, alongside William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, founded in 1848 the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, seeking to emulate what they saw as the direct and uncomplicated depiction of nature typical of Italian painting before the High Renaissance in general and Raphael in particular, hence the name.
Rossetti was born in London to Gabriele Rossetti, an exiled scholar from Vasto and founder of the Carbonari secret society, and Frances Polidori, the sister of John William Polidori. He was the second of four children: Maria Francesca, the eldest, joined the Society of All Saints, an Anglican religious order, William Michael, the second youngest, became a writer and literary critic, and Christina, the youngest, became a poet in her own right. Gabriel was called such by his friends and family, but at an early stage of his professional career, he modified his name to "Dante Gabriel Rossetti" in honor of Dante Alighieri.
Rossetti was taught at home and then King's College School, where he learned Latin, French, and some Greek. He frequently read the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Walter Scott, and Lord Byron, and aimed to be a poet. He also wished to be a painter, developing an interest in medieval Italian art, and went to Henry Sass' Drawing Academy in 1841. He left King's College School in 1843 and enrolled in the Antique School of the Royal Academy in 1845. He did not work well under academic tutelage and left the school three years later, when he worked as an apprentice to Ford Madox Brown, whose work he admired.
