Christina Rossetti, the fervent proponent of High Anglicanism who gave us #112 in the Episcopal hymnal, the haunting carol “In the Bleak Midwinter,” also wrote the brief poem below, often anthologized for children:

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894); chalk drawing by her brother, Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you;
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I;
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
Read in the context of Rossetti’s ardent faith, these deceptively simply stanzas offer subtle but powerful suggestions for us as we begin our observation of a holy Advent.
The precise diction with which Rossetti presents the images in her two stanzas carries obvious Biblical connotations. The leaves in the first stanza are trembling—a word that appears throughout Bible, often characterizing the proper behavior of sinners and saints alike in the presence of God: Continue reading →