English-born Victorian poet Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894) was the daughter of an exiled Italian patriot who grew up surrounded by love. She privately published her first collection of poetry, Verses: Dedicated to Her Mother, at just 16.

“The downhill path is easy, but there's no turning back,” said Rossetti, a passionate Anglican with deep religious devotion.

Influenced by John Keats and Dante Alighieri, she pursued writing with spirited abandon. Her short, irregularly rhymed lines expressed mystic yearning and faith, exploring love, death, and the passage of age.

With the publication of Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), Rossetti became one of the most significant poetic voices of her time. “My heart is like a singing bird,” she wrote.

Though beautiful, she led a reclusive life and never married. Diagnosed with Graves disease in the 1870s, she remained dedicated to her family, especially her mother.

Through her emotional words, Rossetti shared the legacy of her heart. “Better by far that you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad,” she once said.