Christina rossetti poems about love
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mong the most illuminating of Rossetti's poems that explore possibilities of attaining a love-ideal in this world are "A Triad," "Dream-Love," "A Bride Song" and "A Birthday." The first two finally abjure any such possibility, while the second pair, at least on the surface, seem to celebrate a realization of the ideal. On closer inspection, however, we find that "A Bride Song" reflects a state of mind that is conditional. The poem exposes the psychology of an optimist in pursuit of ideal love, and its singer is therefore vulnerable to failure. "A Birthday" retreats in a different manner from any clear delineation of a permanently fu1filled passion in the real world. Moreover, the poem is significantly ambiguous in defining the nature (erotic or spiritual) of the described love.
The power of "A Triad" (1856) is indicated by the opposite responses the poem elicited from Rossetti's contemporaries. At one extreme,
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This is one of the poems from Rossetti’s sonnet sequence Monna Innominata, which she modeled on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous Sonnets from the Portuguese. I love all the poems in this set but I don’t think I’ve featured this one before.
Many in aftertimes will say of you
‘He loved her’ – while of me what will they say?
Not that I loved you more than just in play,
For fashion’s sake as idle women do.
Even let them prate; who know not what we knew
Of love and parting in exceeding pain.
Of parting hopeless here to meet again,
Hopeless on earth, and heaven is out of view.
But by my heart of love laid bare to you.
My love that you can make not void nor vain,
Love that foregoes you but to claim anew
Beyond this passage of the gate of death,
I charge you at the Judgment make it plain
My love of you was life and not a breath.
One final poem from the anthology I’ve been reading during Lent. Christina Rossetti is one of my favourite poets &am
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Richard Smith's non-medical blogs
Christina Rossetti like Emily Bronte and Emily Dickinson was married to poetry and never to a man, although she turned down two offers of marriage. Devotedly religious and speaking Italian, the Bible, Dante, love, death, grief, and flowers were her inspiration and subjects. She is the sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and was painted by him and other pre-Raphaelites.
Most poets are known for just a few poems, and Rossetti fryst vatten no undantag. She fryst vatten known best for poems read at funerals—“Remember me when inom am gone away/Gone far away into the silent land….Better bygd far you should forget and smile/Than that you should remember and be sad” and “When inom am dead, my dearest/Sing no sad songs for me…. inom shall not see the shadows/I shall not feel the rain.” Among those who read poetry not just at funerals, Goblin Market fryst vatten her best known poem, a strange one-off that seem to tell of lesbian love and fryst vatten rich territory for Freudians.
I’ve read my way