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General Introduction | A Time to Change, A 
Time to Mourn

Christina Rossetti was a Victorian British poet best 
known for her fantastical work “Goblin Market” (1862). 
However, this poem, recounting the whimsical tale of 
two sisters and their magical goblin encounter, does not 
say as much about Rossetti’s life as some of her other 
works. Rossetti dealt with substantial personal losses in 
her lifetime, losses that are expressed in her ghostly poet-
ry. By looking into these poems, especially “The Ghost’s 
Petition” (1866), it is possible to gain insight not only 
into Rossetti’s losses but also into the mourning practices 
common in the Victorian era itself. 

Rossetti lived at an age filled with political and social 
changes, both in her native England and around the 
world. The Victorian era was a time of transition in many 
walks of life, a time of expanding enlightenment and an 
increased interest in unfamiliar cultures and ideologies. 
These sweeping changes affected many details of day-
to-day life for citizens, but for Rossetti in particular the 
biggest and most threatening change was public opin-
ion about religion. This was one of the first moments in 
history when religious doubt became socially acceptable 
and believers were encouraged to question and examine 
their faith. Rossetti’s increasingly religious writings may 
have been a reaction to this new environment of religious 
skepticism, a way of fighting back against what she per-
ceived as religious backsliding (D’amico).

For deeply religious individuals such as Christina 

Rossetti, this backsliding was nothing short of terrifying. 
Rossetti faced a great deal of uncertainty throughout 
her life, including failing health, numerous deaths in 
the family, and unsatisfied love. Her Protestantism was 
the one constant in her life, and the climate of reli-
gious doubt threatened the only certainty she had. This 
doubt also lends itself well to the concepts of ghosts and 
hauntings, as Rossetti likely felt very isolated and alone 
in her steadfast faith. Both of her poems that are includ-
ed in this edition feature a profound sense of loneliness, 
suggesting that Rossetti’s life was similar to the “life” of 
a ghost frozen in the middle of a transition and isolated 
even in the company of others.

Rossetti certainly was not alone in enduring multi-
ple deaths in the family. One particularly telling death 
was the probable suicide of her older brother Gabriel’s 
romantic interest, Elizabeth Siddal. He had led her on 
for years, promising to marry her but never following 
through with a proposal, until her failing health guilted 
him into marrying her on the spot. When their first child 
was born dead, it sent Lizzie into a tailspin of depression 
and psychosis. She died within the year under mysterious 
circumstances that could easily have pointed to suicide, 
though all evidence that might have proved it so was 
destroyed. Guilt-ridden and distraught, Gabriel buried 
an irreplaceable collection of poems he had been work-
ing on with her (though he later had her coffin secretly 
exhumed so that he could retrieve the manuscript). Later 
in his life as his health failed him, he became convinced 
that he had been visited by her spirit. Whether this was 

This critical edition presents Christina Rossetti’s ghostly poetry, analyzing its 
overall cultural impact and influence. In addition to her poetry, we have in-
cluded contextual documents pertaining to mourning, widowhood, and poetic 
expression. As a whole, this edition gives insight into how and why poetry can 
be an appropriate method for women to express grief in the Victorian era. 

Ghosts of Loss: Christina Rossetti’s Haunted Poetry 

Edited by Ruth Weller-Passman, Mackenzie Fluharty, & Ashley Starling

Digital Literature Review, vol. 1 (2014).  © Ball State University. All Rights Reserved. 
Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce this critical edition to dlr@bsu.edu. 



the result of a guilty conscience, a deterioration of mental 
health, or a true posthumous visitation, Gabriel’s convic-
tion may have struck a chord with Rossetti and inspired 
her to include ghosts and spirits in her own writing.1

Victorian society need not look to fiction such as 
Rossetti’s works to find death and its influence. Los-
ing a loved one and having to perform the standard 
mourning rituals was an eventual experience. For the 
poor in society, death meant being tossed into a large 
pit and buried with other nameless souls (Strange 110). 
For the middle and upper classes, however, death took 
on a graceful etiquette. The well-to-do were “sent off ” 
with beautiful funerals and elaborate burials. Cassell’s 
Household Guide, a London publication for Victorian 
women, describes various funeral packages that could be 
purchased, the most grandiose of which included spec-
tacles such as a hearse with four horses, ostrich feather 
plumes, and fourteen men to serve as pages and coachmen 
(66). Additionally, those who had lost a loved one donned 
all black and wore these mourning clothes for a year or 
more. Widows were even expected to arrive late for social 
functions, including church. Generally, mourning became 
not only an emotion but a complete lifestyle for those left 
behind. At the surface, these mourning practices seem 
to be a remarkable way in which to honor the dead. All 
that this etiquette serves to do, however, is to prolong the 
grieving process.

In order to deal with their grief, many women turned 
to their diaries. However, poetry was also a common 
outlet for grief and sorrow because of its personal nature. 
Between the feelings of loss and the general desire for the 
dead to somehow remain, it was only natural for these 
grief poems to eventually feature ghostly figures.

In this critical edition, we will examine the connec-
tion between grief and ghost poetry in the primary text, 
Christina Rossetti’s “The Ghost’s Petition.” Additionally, a 
deeper look into Rossetti herself, the culture of the time 
period, and the experience of a Victorian widow will be 
featured in the contextual documents.

Poem Introduction | Petitions, Promises, and 
Protestantism

Ghosts are often associated with the terror of the un-
dead: beings that have somehow cheated death to remain 
on Earth for some nefarious or vengeful purpose. Yet 

there is another style of ghost that is often forgotten in 
the wake of horror stories and haunted houses: the ghost 
that remains tethered to the mortal world by grief instead 
of anger. This is the type of ghost to be found in Christina 
Rossetti’s poem “The Ghost’s Petition.” Published in her 
1866 anthology The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems, 
the poem opens on a recently widowed woman sitting up 
with her sister and watching for her husband. The bereft 
wife is convinced that her husband “must keep his word” 
and return to her from death, and after her skeptical sister 
has gone to bed for the night, the husband does indeed 
make a posthumous appearance. It becomes apparent that 
the wife is inadvertently binding her husband to life: her 
grief itself is keeping him from peaceful rest.

The format of the poem itself bears some analysis. 
While the version presented here has the poem arranged 
into triplets, there are some versions of the poem where 
the stanzas are longer and less broken up. This version is 
in this edition because its format seems more appropriate 
for its topic. The triplets allow for the repetitions to stand 
out, as in the repeated reference to one sleeping and one 
weeping in stanzas 7, 8 and 17. There is also something to 
be said for the power of threes: the number three is often 
associated with mysticism and magic, and additionally 
the poem features three characters (the wife, her sister 
Jane, and her husband Robin). The shorter stanzas also 
call the reader’s attention to the rhyme structure. Lines 
one and three of each stanza are rhymed, and there is 
an internal rhyme within the second line of each stanza. 
This hasty resolution of rhyme structure compels the 
reader to pick up speed as the poem progresses, giving 
the poem an urgency that is mirrored by Robin’s urgency 
in pleading for his wife’s help.

One of the most noteworthy features of this poem is 
its lack of narration. Only four brief stanzas bridge the 
dialogue between the sisters and the dialogue between 
husband and wife. The rest of the piece is conversation—
conversation, in fact, that is not even broken up to iden-
tify the speakers. The reader is left to deduce what line 
has been spoken by which character. This, coupled with 
the fact that the wife’s name is never mentioned, renders 
the language of the poem as ghostly as the story itself. 
Perhaps Rossetti intentionally left the characters uniden-
tified so that readers could imagine themselves within 
the world of the poem, but she also endowed them with 
hauntingly familiar themes: the pain of loss, the devotion 

187

Notes
1. See Jones (107-112) for a more detailed account of Elizabeth Siddal’s death.

“The Ghost’s Petition”



of love. The characters are simultaneously familiar and 
unfamiliar, abstract and literal, and even material and 
spectral. The husband is unable to hold his wife, as he states 
in lines 38 and 39. But he cannot be entirely immaterial, as 
he references lying in his grave multiple times (lines 44 and 
48). Rossetti could have been implying that Robin is still 
partially bound to his corpse that lies in the grave, despite 
his spirit’s ability to walk abroad and interact with his living 
wife. In the 16th stanza he also describes the horror of being 
unable to shut his ears against his wife’s ceaseless crying. To 
be bound to life after death as a specter is horrible enough, 
but to remain tethered to a rotting corpse submerged in the 
Earth is even more ghastly. The reader certainly canot fault 
Robin for seeking an end to that torment.

The imagery of the poem is evocative of ghosts and 
spectrality. In the first stanza, the sister, looking out the win-
dow at her sibling’s request, notes the falling leaves and the 
howling wind. The season is autumn, then—an appropri-
ately liminal setting for a poem about hauntings. The trees 
are beginning to retreat into a kind of living death for the 
winter, but have not yet dropped all their leaves. Robin also 
states in line 42 that “no tree can stand” on the hill where 
he is buried. Perhaps he means that the bloom of life may 
not grow near the tombs of the half-dead, as they are firmly 
alive while Robin is neither wholly dead nor alive. The wind, 
too, has a spectrality to it: an incorporeal manifestation, it 
nonetheless has a very physical presence, pulling leaves off 
the trees and casting a chill over anyone it catches. Both 
these images continue to haunt the narrative: when Robin 
is ascending the staircase and preparing to enter the house, 
he shakes the door “like a puff of air” (line 27). Robin, like 
the wind, is both present and absent: he can shake the door, 
but he cannot embrace his wife. Later he describes the dead 
as “trees that have shed their leaves” (line 43). Like a tree in 
autumn, the spirits of the dead have not been exterminat-
ed altogether—they remain partially alive, in spite of their 
physical forms’ demise. Something, whether it be the “ten-
der hand” (line 67) of God or the grief of a mourning loved 
one, keeps them tethered to life in death.

There is another specter that haunts this poem: the 
specter of religious duty. Though it isn’t explicitly referenced, 
a profound belief in the afterlife drives this poem. “Tender 
hand hath made our nest” (line 67), Robin tells his wife. It is 
hard to imagine that this “tender hand” belongs to any-
one but God. The only description of the afterlife that the 

husband offers is that it is a place where mortal fears vanish 
and only hope remains. In fact, the wife is almost prepared 
to give up her life and join her husband in the pleasures of 
death. Yet it is clear that this notion is never truly enter-
tained by either Robin or his wife: though she is desperately 
lonely and hungry for the comforting rest of death, the wife 
knows that her place is on Earth. Suicide is a sin, after all, 
and perhaps the wife knows that she could jeopardize her 
place in the afterlife if she followed Robin so prematurely 
into the grave. This choice between religious duty and love 
would no doubt have been a familiar one to Christina Ros-
setti’s audience—and Rossetti herself. Twice Rossetti turned 
down marriage proposals because of her suitors’ religious 
affiliations first from a Catholic, and then from an atheist. 
Though she mourned the losses of love and feared a life of 
solitude, her Protestant beliefs were more important to her.2 
Just as Robin’s wife never truly considers following her hus-
band, Rossetti would never have truly considered giving up 
her religious principles for marriage. In a way, “The Ghost’s 
Petition” is as much about Rossetti’s ghosts as it is about the 
ghost of Robin.

The poem also begins and ends with a promise, which is 
an immaterial specter of sorts whose presence nonetheless 
can be felt and relied upon. In the third stanza, the wife 
alludes to a promise that her husband made her to always 
come home, regardless of the circumstances. The strength of 
that promise is enough to lift Robin from his grave, enough 
to keep him from whatever pleasures await him beyond 
death. One could even argue that his promise haunts him in 
the same way that he is now haunting his wife. By the end of 
the poem, however, the story comes full circle: though the 
wife is desperate to rejoin her husband and tempted by the 
pleasures of the afterlife, she promises to cease her grieving 
and move on with her life so that her husband may rest in 
peace. That promise will continue to haunt the wife as she 
goes about her days, missing her husband but careful not to 
miss him too deeply for fear of yanking him back from the 
grave yet again.

Through a choice use of language, evocative imagery, 
the employment of religious undertones, and the theme of 
a promise, Christina Rossetti creates ghosts that haunt not 
only the characters of the poem itself, but the poem’s readers 
(and even its own author).

The poem is just as much a ghost as Robin is, haunting all 
those who come into contact with it.

Notes
2. See Jones 2(9-30) and (34-47) for a thorough discussion of Rossetti’s first proposal of marriage.

188“The Ghost’s Petition”



Notes
3. The text of the poem is taken from The Haunted Hour: An Anthology (1920), compiled by Margaret Widdemer.
4. A plains, grassland or meadow.
5. The sister being one of only two named characters is significant. Rossetti had three older siblings and remained close with them throughout her lifetime.
Additionally, allocating the name of ‘Jane’ to the sister emphasizes the sister’s insignificance to the narrator. ‘Jane Doe’ was used for anonymity since 1855.
6. A landing is a transitory space between sets of stairs, signifying another threshold that Robin has to cross to reach his grieving wife.

“The Ghost’s Petition”3 
by Christina Rossetti 

‘There’s a footstep coming: look out and see,’
  ‘The leaves are falling, the wind is calling;

No one cometh across the lea.’—4

‘There’s a footstep coming; O sister, look.’—
  ‘The ripple flashes, the white foam dashes;

No one cometh across the brook.’—

‘But he promised that he would come:
  To-night, to-morrow, in joy or sorrow,

He must keep his word, and must come home.

‘For he promised that he would come:
  His word was given; from earth or heaven,

He must keep his word, and must come home.

‘Go to sleep, my sweet sister Jane;5

  You can slumber, who need not number
Hour after hour, in doubt and pain.

‘I shall sit here awhile, and watch;
  Listening, hoping, for one hand groping

In deep shadow to find the latch.’

After the dark, and before the light,
  One lay sleeping; and one sat weeping,

Who had watched and wept the weary night.

After the night, and before the day,
  One lay sleeping; and one sat weeping—

Watching, weeping for one away.

There came a footstep climbing the stair;
  Some one standing out on the landing6 

Shook the door like a puff of air—
Shook the door, and in he passed.
  Did he enter? In the room centre

Stood her husband: the door shut fast.

189“The Ghost’s Petition”



  Chilled with the night-dew: so lily-white you
Look like a stray lamb from our fold.8 

‘O Robin, but you are late:
  Come and sit near me—sit here and cheer me.’—

(Blue the flame burnt in the grate.)

‘Lay not down your head on my breast:
  I cannot hold you, kind wife, nor fold you

In the shelter that you love best.

‘Feel not after my clasping hand:
  I am but a shadow, come from the meadow

Where many lie, but no tree can stand.

‘We are trees which have shed their leaves:
  Our heads lie low there, but no tears flow there;

Only I grieve for my wife who grieves.

‘I could rest if you would not moan
  Hour after hour; I have no power
To shut my ears where I lie alone.

‘I could rest if you would not cry;
  But there’s no sleeping while you sit weeping—

Watching, weeping so bitterly.’—

‘Woe’s me! woe’s me! for this I have heard.
  Oh night of sorrow!--oh black to-morrow!

Is it thus that you keep your word?

‘O you who used so to shelter me
  Warm from the least wind—why, now the east wind9 

Is warmer than you, whom I quake to see.
‘O my husband of flesh and blood,

  For whom my mother I left, and brother,
And all I had, accounting it good,

‘What do you do there, underground,
  In the dark hollow?10 I’m fain11 to follow.

What do you do there?—what have you found?’—

Notes
7. Robins are symbols of spring, a transitory time of year and also a time of rebirth and renewal. Robins are also associated with Christ and sacrifice, which  
was a significant theme in Rossetti’s life (she frequently made life decisions based on her faith).
8. The lamb has Biblical associations with renewal, growth and even sacrifice—it is seen as the perfect victim for selfless sacrifice for the sake of another, 
much like the wife’s sacrifice of her grief to allow her husband to move on.
9. The east wind is a Biblical harbinger of destruction. Also, in England, a southwesterly wind would come from the Atlantic and be warm and pleasant; an  
easterly wind would be coming from the Baltic or Arctic and would thus be cold and bitter. 
10. Both a hole or cavity, or to cry out in either anguish or encouragement.
11. To be inclined, willing or desirous.

190“The Ghost’s Petition”



Contextual Documents

Excerpts from Lady Cavendish’s Diary: 
A Widow’s Grief in Victorian Britain

“The Ghost’s Petition” tells of an expression of female 
grief that manifests itself in a ghostly visit. In order to fully 
understand the mindset of the average mourning widow in 
the Victorian era, one should consider the writings of Lady 
Lucy Cavendish. Lady Cavendish kept extensive diaries for 
the majority of her lifetime, including the duration of her 
husband’s sudden death and elaborate funeral. These entries 
not only express her inner mourning but also present the 
common Victorian funeral practices of her time. Lady Cav-
endish’s diaries offer a complementary female experience 
and perspective to that of Rossetti’s narrator. 

Lady Cavendish was only married to her husband, Lord 
Frederick Cavendish, for eighteen years before he was 
assassinated. Lord Cavendish was appointed Chief Secretary 
for Ireland on May 6, 1882 but was fatally stabbed that same 
afternoon by an extreme nationalist group. His wife was 
informed of her husband’s death via a friend’s telegram. In 
the following excerpts, we witness Cavendish’s reaction to 
learning about her husband’s death and the way she inter-
acted with her uncle, the Prime Minister William Gladstone 
(referred to as “Uncle W” by Lady Cavendish), his wife 

Catherine Gladstone (“Auntie Pussy”), and her various close 
friends. Even after two years had passed and Lord Caven-
dish’s murderers were punished, her entries show a lingering 
sadness characteristic to a mourning widow. 

Her diary entries also give insight into the common 
Victorian funeral practices, of which some resemble the 
customs we observe at funerals today. After her husband’s 
death, Lady Cavendish was not expected to attend her nor-
mal social functions and was even allowed to enter church 
at a later part of the service. Flowers and crosses adorned the 
coffin and church where the funeral was held and prayers 
emphasizing the good of Christ were said over the body. 

Overall, Lady Cavendish’s diaries paint her with an 
emotional experience quite similar to that of the narrator 
in Rossetti’s “The Ghost’s Petition.” Both experience the loss 
of their husbands in rather sudden ways and both hold on 
to their grief for an extended period of time. The primary 
difference, of course, is that while Lady Cavendish was able 
to handle her grief in a healthy manner, Rossetti’s narrator 
needs a ghostly apparition to incite her to move on.

Excerpts12 from Saturday, May 6th, 1882 entry13

“It was very near 3.30 before I cd get out, but I went 
to the Abbey, thinking I shd at all events hear the con-
cluding prayers and cd have a quiet time there for prayer. 

‘What I do there I must not tell:
  But I have plenty: kind wife, content ye:

It is well with us—it is well.

‘Tender hand hath made our nest;
  Our fear is ended, our hope is blended

With present pleasure, and we have rest.’—

‘Oh, but Robin, I’m fain to come,
  If your present days are so pleasant;

For my days are so wearisome.

‘Yet I’ll dry my tears for your sake:
  Why should I tease you, who cannot please you

Any more with the pains I take?’

Notes
12. These excerpts are quoted from The Diary of Lady Frederick Cavendish (1927), written by Lucy Cavendish and published by Frederick A. Stokes 
Company.
13. This entry is dated for May 6th, 1882, but was actually written on February 9th, 1883. As stated in this entry, Lady Cavendish felt she could only record 
the happenings of that day at a time that she could emotionally handle her grief.

191“The Ghost’s Petition”



But I got there while they were singing the anthem “In 
that day”—at the passage “Thou shalt keep him in perfect 
peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.” These words were 
sung first by one voice, then by another, then a third, 
then in chorus, with the most lovely harmony and sweet-
ness; and I thought, “0, these are the very words for my 
Fred”; during the final chorus I knelt down and prayed 
for him with my whole heart, but not that he might be 
saved from peril—(a mere idle thought crossed me once-
what if the steamer shd go down on the passage?)—that 
I never thought of—but that he might have wisdom and 
strength and help...

...I was not left alone till near 12. I sat down at my 
writing-table and wrote 2 notes, one to the little sisters to 
ask them to tea on Monday; another to the Byng girls, to 
propose their coming at 5 on Sunday for some reading. 
Then I took the paper off a set of beautifully bound little 
books (his “Gleanings”), which Uncle William had sent 
over in the course of the day, with a most affectionate 
little letter to me, begging me to ask Freddy to give them 
a place on his shelves “in memory—in grateful mem-
ory on my part-of what he has been to me these past 2 
years.” I was just writing to thank him, and had begun, 
“Dear Uncle William, I must write one line (though how 
unnecessary)” when the door opened and Lou came in. 
No thought of fear struck me at first; I knew she wished 
for a talk, and I only thought that on her way home from 
the Admiralty she had looked in so as to find me alone. 
But as soon as I saw her face, the terror seized me, and 
I knew something must have happened to my darling. 
She had the dreadful telegram in her hand—but it said 
“dangerously wounded,” and I clung to the hope he wd 
get over it. She could not tell me, but I felt that she did 
not say a word of hope.

Then Meriel came in, and then the whole anguish fell 
upon me. All my blessed joy of many years wrecked in 
the darkness. In the midst of the black storm a confused 
feeling came over me that it wd kill Uncle W. who had 
sent him out in such hope—as indeed a “son of his right 
hand.” But then Uncle W. himself came in with Atie. 
Pussy—I saw his face, pale, sorrow-stricken, but like a 
prophet’s in its look of faith and strength. He came up 
and almost took me in his arms, and his first words were, 
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 
Then he said to me, “Be assured it will not be in vain,” 
and across all my agony there fell a bright ray of hope, 
and I saw in a vision Ireland at peace, and my darling’s 

life-blood accepted as a sacrifice for Christ’s sake, to help 
to bring this to pass. I write these words at Holker, Feb. 9, 
1883, having only been able to write the whole history bit 
by bit as I could bear it. This my 1st ray of hope has never 
entirely forsaken me, through all the dark, blank months 
emptied of joy. I said to him as he was leaving me, “Uncle 
Wm., you must never blame yourself for sending him.” 
He said, “O no, there can be no question of that.” Once he 
said, “Poor Forster!”...

...God be thanked for His wonderful teaching, when 
He sent upon me the terrible blow, that took away the 
desire of my eyes with a stroke. No word or presentiment 
of warning was granted me: one minute I was crowned 
with the fulness of earthly joy and love—my life full to 
the brim of hope and interest—the next, all lay shattered 
around me in one dark wreck, and with what circum-
stances of horror and fear! How was it that reason and 
faith and nerves did not give way: how was it that I did 
not sink down into despair?...

...All the attendant circumstances were most tenderly 
ordered for me, so that I had round me all loving human 
help, and was at home among his dear ones and mine. 
Only by an “accident” was I prevented, at the last mo-
ment, from keeping an engagement out of town; which 
would have taken me among comparative strangers. By 
another “accident” I did not go out that very Saturday 
evening. It was without my arranging it that dear Lou, 
and Meriel, and Alfred were all with me at dinner and 
afterwards. (In the same “chance” way Eddy happened to 
be with his father at Chatsworth.)

Other things there were to bring me help beforehand; 
most especially the anthem at Evensong on Saturday at 
the Abbey. I could only go very late to the service, and 
only expected to come in for the concluding prayers; but 
the anthem was being sung as I came in, and the blessed 
Divine Promise came over and over, in lovely pathetic 
harmonies. “Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose 
mind is stayed on Thee.” Thus in minute and tender 
ways did He care for me “more than a mother doth.” “He 
remembereth that we are but dust.”

But now let me turn to the greater miracles of mercy, 
whereby alone I was saved from sinking in the deep wa-
ters. In the first hour of darkness God sent Uncle William 
with a message straight from Him, which alone at that 
moment could give me strength, and which still abides 
with me, though so often I can but feebly cling to it: the 
assurance that my darling’s life was not given in vain. In 

192“The Ghost’s Petition”



the midst of the storm, the vision was granted me of my 
darling called to that highest honour, of being allowed 
to die, guiltless (most guiltless, as regards Ireland), and 
thereby good to come, and peace, and better days: that 
thus his death, and my sorrow, might, for CHRIST’s sake, 
be accepted as a sacrifice, and ascend to GOD in union 
with the One Great Sacrifice.

Later, I had the thought sent to me how earnestly I 
ought to try and not spoil my share in the sacrifice by any 
repining or want of resignation; but offer up my will with 
the same single heart as my darling did.”

Sunday, May 7th, 1882 

“...I sat all day in our dear, dear house, full of familiar 
things, and thought I realised that all was shattered and 
gone from me, but did not: hardly yet can I do it. It was 
about dawn I think that Lou (who never went home all 
night) came gently into my room where my darling old 
Meriel had spent the night with me. Lou had a little kind 
smile on her face, and for one second I thought “she has 
come to tell me it is not true.” But the hope vanished. 
Messages had come during the night saying Charlotte 
and I were not to go to Dublin; that I shd be able to see 
my Fred’s face placid and beautiful at Chatsworth. My 
darling Alfred came upstairs soon afterwards, and it was 
while he was with me that I thought of the victorious 
sufferings of Christ...”

 
Monday, May 8th, 1882

“...Lou and I, Nevy and Alfred, went down to Chats-
worth together and I went straight to the Duke’s room. 
He had written me a few words of heartbroken sorrow. 
Eddy had had to tell him, and said that he fell on his 
knees. He looked piteously shattered and stricken. I tried 
to say to him how I hoped he wd never think it had been 
wrong for him to go; and he said no, he knew it was his 
duty. He said, “He was the best son, and I do believe the 
best man.” I sat in Lou’s little room, and masses of beauti-
ful flowers kept arriving.

My own darling was laid in the chapel. His face beau-
tiful and serene and pure, like sleep, only more tranquil: 
the lines smoothed away. No sign of hurt except a little 
scratch on the bridge of the nose. His look, as Althorp 
wrote to me, “as if no shadow of sin or suffering had ever 

come near him.” His soft hair falling back from his fore-
head as it used to do. I put on his breast the little locket 
with my hair which I gave him in the “golden days.” Mary 
Gladstone made a long beautiful cross of white flowers 
and ferns to lay on the coffin, and we covered the floor of 
the chapel round him with wreaths and crosses. Edward 
Talbot and Arthur came from Oxford and said prayers 
with me in my room every day. Nevy or Alfred went out 
with me a little in the garden. All was lovely, outbreaking 
spring and bright sunshine, speaking to me of the Eternal 
Joy and Brightness…

...The way to the church was one great concourse of 
people ; but there was no disorder. The little half-sisters 
sent me a wreath of roses with a card “For dear Brother 
Freddy,” and I took it with me and dropped it into the 
grave. The Grey-coat Hospital sent a wreath of dark-red 
roses, with the words, “The Noble army of Martyrs praise 
Thee,” and this was laid on the coffin, on the transverse of 
the cross. Edward Talbot read the service beautifully, so 
as to be heard far round, and said at the end, “Give peace 
in our time, O Lord.”...”

October 23rd, 1884 

“. . . The trials lasted through long and terrible weeks. 
Four were executed: Brady, Kelly, Curley, and Fagan; 
others were imprisoned for life. People wrote full of 
sorrow for me, thinking it must “reopen my grief,” but 
how should that be, when it had never, never for an hour 
closed. There was no reopening of grief, but it became 
a long pain to me that my own darling, so gentle and 
loving-hearted, and so full of faith and hope for Ireland—
so tender-hearted for others tho’ so strong to endure 
hardness himself—should be, with Mr. Burke, the most 
innocent cause of all this ghastly bloodshed and have his 
death associated with such terrible wickedness. O, how 
cd I ever bear it, but for that One Death of Him Who met 
it at the hands of wicked men…”

“At Home” 1862 | Rossetti’s Ghosts

“The Ghost’s Petition” covers many of the themes and 
concepts that Christina Rossetti loved to explore in her 
writing. Rossetti spent a great deal of her life struggling 
to reconcile her intense religious faithfulness with her 
desperate loneliness. Twice in her life Rossetti ended 
romantic relationships because the man in question was 

193“The Ghost’s Petition”



not a Protestant. Although her feelings of isolation fre-
quently manifested in her poetry, her deep-seated religi-
osity was always more formative in her decision-making.

Both “The Ghost’s Petition” and “At Home” deal with 
both an unquestioning belief in life after death (in these 
cases, taking the form of a ghost) and with a sense of 
isolation and loss. While “The Ghost’s Petition” focuses on 
a romantic relationship torn asunder by death, “At Home” 
deals with a ghost looking in on her still-living friends 
and feeling forgotten. A noteworthy parallel between the 
two poems is that “The Ghost’s Petition” is written from 
the perspective of the bereaved wife as she is visited by the 
ghost of her former husband, while “At Home” is written 
from the ghost’s point of view. The former was written a 
decade or so after Rossetti’s first failed engagement, and 
reflects both a fear of abandonment and a profound belief 
in and longing for love. Though characters in “The Ghost’s 
Petition” are separated by the husband’s death, their 
devotion to each other is so strong that the wife’s grief has 
actually bound her husband to life, keeping him from the 
“plenty” that he may receive in the afterlife. 

“At Home,” however, was written right around the 
same time that Rossetti was rejecting her second propos-

al of marriage for religious reasons. Older, unhealthier 
and perhaps more bitter, Rossetti had watched her three 
siblings going through their own romantic entangle-
ments. “At Home” illustrates the way that Rossetti’s 
understanding of ghosts evolved. The “Petition” ghost 
was tethered to life by love and a sense of duty to his 
grieving wife. Perhaps it is meant to comfort the griev-
ing by reminding them that their love means something 
even after they have left this world. The “At Home” ghost 
remains behind to look for some sign or symptom of 
this meaning, but instead she finds herself spying on 
her friends’ merriment and wondering why they are not 
more saddened by her loss. This is not a ghost meant to 
comfort. Perhaps this is a ghost meant to warn against 
finding meaning on earth instead of in Heaven. On their 
own, the ghosts from both poems provide insight into 
both the characters in their own narratives and Rossetti 
herself. But when compared to one another, the progression 
of Rossetti’s opinions and beliefs truly becomes apparent. 

“At Home”14

by Christina Rossetti

When I was dead, my spirit turned
To seek the much-frequented house:

I passed the door, and saw my friends
Feasting beneath green orange boughs; 

From hand to hand they pushed the wine, 
They sucked the pulp of plum and peach; 
They sang, they jested, and they laughed,

For each was loved of each.

I listened to their honest chat:
Said one: “To-morrow we shall be

Plod plod along the featureless sands, 
And coasting miles and miles of sea.” 

Said one: “Before the turn of tide
We will achieve the eyrie-seat.”

Said one: “To-morrow shall be like
To-day, but much more sweet.”

Notes
14. The text of the poem was taken from The Haunted Hour: An Anthology (1920), compiled by Margaret Widdemer. 

194“The Ghost’s Petition”



“To-morrow,” said they, strong with hope, 
And dwelt upon the pleasant way: 

“To-morrow,” cried they, one and all, 
While no one spoke of yesterday.

Their life stood full at blessed noon; 
I, only I, had passed away: 

“To-morrow and to-day,” they cried;
I was of yesterday.

I shivered comfortless, but cast
No chill across the table-cloth; 
I, all-forgotten, shivered, sad

To stay, and yet to part how loth: 
I passed from the familiar room, 

I who from love had passed away,
Like the remembrance of a guest

That tarrieth but a day.

“The Dying Widow” (1851) | Gender Issues in 
Ghost Poetry

This poem, written by Thomas Miller, was published 
in 1851 in The London Journal. It recounts a woman’s 
grief over her deceased husband and son. Whereas in 
Rossetti’s poem, the ghost of the husband comes to the 
narrator to request that she let go of her grief and mourn-
ing for him so that he may rest, Miller’s poem fixates 
on the wife’s mourning and grief being so great that it 
actually leads to her death. The narrator also seems to 
see letting herself die as part of her role as a wife, saying 
“I have faithfully kept my vow/And feel not an accusing 
sting” (line 51-52). This is a stark contrast to that of Ros-
setti’s poem that calls for a continuation of life beyond 
grief and mourning. Rossetti’s more hopeful outlook 
might be due to her deeply rooted religious beliefs, par-
ticularly the aversion of letting a grief becoming so all 
consuming that it leads to a death, suicide or otherwise. 
This is exemplified by Rossetti’s use of the husband in 
“The Ghost’s Petition” who comes to his grieving wife 

and asks for her to grieve for him, yes, but to also move 
on with her life. Miller, on the other hand, seems to 
romanticize the concept of the grieving widow. In “The 
Dying Widow,” we are told that her son had died five 
months prior to the present of the poem, and also that her 
husband died one month before; these two people would 
be viewed as the only reasons that this woman had to 
be alive. Miller’s poem exemplified the fact that men 
dictated the patterns of female mourning; he is express-
ing the ideal of how women should grieve based on the 
typical male view of female grief in Victorian society. 
These two poems provide the two different views of how 
grieving practices should have been viewed. Miller’s 
representation in the poem may hint at an underlying 
male perspective that their passing from a woman’s life 
was meant to be so devastating that women should want 
to die with, if not shortly after, them. Rossetti, offering a 
different and decidedly female view, seems to be indicat-
ing that men should be grateful for the grieving period 
women will go through, but that it should not mean the 
end of the end of women’s lives. 

195“The Ghost’s Petition”



The Dying Widow15

by Thomas Miller
 

Those cold white curtain-folds displace—
That form I would no longer see:

They have assumed my husband’s face,
And all night long it looked at me.

I wished it not to go away,
Yet trembled while it did remain;

I closed my eyes, and tried to pray—
Alas! I tried in vain.

 I know my head is very weak;
I’ve seen what fancy can create;
I long have felt too low to speak:

Oh! I have thought too much of late!
I have a few requests to make—

Just wipe these blinding tears away—
I know your love and for my sake

You will them all obey.
 

My child has scarce a month been dead,
My husband has been dead but five;

What dreary hours since that have fled!
I wonder I am yet alive.

My child, through him Death aimed the blow,
And from that hour I did decline;

His coffin, when my head lies low,
I would have placed on mine.

 
Those letters which my husband sent

Before he perished in the deep—
What hours in reading them I’ve spent!

Whole nights, in which I could not sleep.
Oh! they are worn with many a tear,

Scarce fit for other eyes to see,
 But oft, when sad, they did me cheer:

Pray, bury them with me.
 

This little cap my Henry wore
The very day before he died;

And I shall never kiss it more—
When deal, you’ll place it by my side.

I know these thoughts are weak, but, oh!
What will a vacant heart not crave?
And, as none else can love them so,

I’ll bear them to my grave.

Notes
15.This text of this poem was taken from the September 16, 1848, issue of The London Journal. 

196“The Ghost’s Petition”



 The miniature that I still wear,
When dead, I would not have removed:

‘Tis on my heart—oh! leave it there,
To find its way to where I loved!

My husband threw it round my neck,
Long, long before he called me bride;

And I was told, amidst the wreck,
He kissed mine ere he died.

 
There’s little that I care for now,
Except this simple wedding-ring:

I faithfully have kept my vow,
And feel not an accusing sting.

I never yet have laid it by
A moment, since my bridal day:

Where he first placed it let it lie—
Oh, take it not away!

 
Now wrap me in my wedding-gown,—
You scarce can think how cold I feel,—
And smooth my ruffled pillow down.

Oh! how my clouded senses reel!
Great God! support me to the last!—

Oh, let more air into the room—
The struggle now is nearly past—

Husband and child, I come!

197“The Ghost’s Petition”



Works Cited

Cassell’s Household Guide: Being a Complete Encyclopaedia of Domestic and Social Economy and Forming a Guide to 
Every Department of Practical Life. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1869. Print. 

Cavendish, Lucy Caroline Lyttelton. The Diary of Lady Frederick Cavendish. New York: Frederick A.  
 Stokes, 1927. Print.

D’Amico, Diane. Christina Rossetti: Faith, Gender and Time. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
 University Press, 1999. Print. 

Harrison, Antony H. Christina Rossetti in Context. Chapel Hill and London: University of North 
 Carolina Press, 1998. Print. 

Jones, Cathleen. Learning Not to be First: The Life of Christina Rossetti. New York: St. Martin’s Press,  
 1991. Print. 

Miller, Thomas. “The Dying Widow.” London Journal 16 Sept. 1848: 23. Microfilm. 

Rossetti, Christina. “At Home.” The Haunted Hour: An Anthology. Ed. Margaret Widdemer. New  
 York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, Inc., 1920. 142-143. Project Gutenberg. Web. 18 Nov  
 2013. <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17229/17229-h/17229-h.htm#Page_142>

----. “The Ghost’s Petition.” The Haunted Hour: An Anthology. Ed. Margaret Widdemer. New York: 
 Harcourt, Brace and Howe, Inc., 1920. 166-169. Project Gutenberg. Web. 18 Nov 2013.   

 <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17229/17229-h/17229-h.htm#Page_66> 

198“The Ghost’s Petition”


