In the Bleak Midwinter

During our lesson in class about Christina Rossetti and how her book Sing Song was broken up in to three phrases, I couldn't help but notice that her first phase reminded me of a famous hymn. After reading lines 11, about the unfulfilled hope in winter, and 17, the promise of spring, I was reminded of the hymn, In the Bleak Midwinter. I love this song and I having been playing it on my piano every winter season. The cool thing is that I always thought that Gustav Holst wrote the song and music. Well, after class the other day when I was checking through the lyrics, I couldn't help but notice that the words were not written by Holst, but Christina Rossetti herself in 1872! Apparently a local magazine asked her to write a Christmas poem so she wrote In the Bleak Midwinter. Gustav Holst later added a melody. How neat is that? This just re enforces my thoughts about how brilliant of a writer she was. The words are so powerful in the hymn and every time I hear them I am so moved. Just look at the first two lines:
"In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone."
She was pretty amazing.
Because I discovered her wonderful gifts of poetry and hymn writing, I decided to see what else she has done. I found that she wrote 12 more hymns, 3 books of poetry, and 4 devotions. Man, she was one gifted lady. I wish I could have met her, I feel she would have been a very interesting lady to talk to!