The Dead City by Christina Rossetti: Living in a time of pandemic?

Christina Rossetti by Lewis Carroll, October 7, 1863, NPG The genius of the family. She was the Dante of our family. Christina, was the daughter of what was noblest in our father and beautiful in our mother. Dante Gabriel Rossetti speaks of his sister. In 1847 poetess, Christina Rossetti believed to be inspired by the story of Zobeide in The Arabian Nights , wrote, The Dead City ; a first person singular allegory where a woman narrates her walk through an abandoned city as she makes her way to a dinner already laid out on a table. The poet warns the reader of the dangers of 'urban materialism' in a consumer culture gone awry almost pleading for the need for spiritual awakening. As we live in the beginning of 2021, one hundred and seventy four years after The Dead City was written, I can see parallels to the detriment of urban living. Thus, resulting in the concrete, grey, desolation of city sidewalks deserted of humans where a light shines upon tents leading the way to a