Showing posts with label Christina Rossetti. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

"I loved you first: but afterwards your love"

I loved you first: but afterwards your love

Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song

As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.

Which owes the other most? my love was long,

And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;

I loved and guessed at you, you construed me

And loved me for what might or might not be –

Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.

For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’

With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,

For one is both and both are one in love:

Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’

Both have the strength and both the length thereof,

Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

Beautiful love poem. I want to remember this one. A link to read more is here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Rossetti

Come to me in the silence of the night;

Come in the speaking silence of a dream;

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

As sunlight on a stream;

Come back in tears,

O memory, hope, love of finished years.

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,

Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,

Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;

Where thirsting longing eyes

Watch the slow door

That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live

My very life again tho’ cold in death:

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:

Speak low, lean low,

As long ago, my love, how long ago.

Speaks so well of loss. Beautiful. A link to read more is here.http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/christina-rossetti

Monna Innominata [I wish I could remember]
by Christina Rossetti

I wish I could remember that first day, First hour, first moment of your meeting me, If bright or dim the season, it might be Summer or Winter for aught I can say; So unrecorded did it slip away, So blind was I to see and to foresee, So dull to mark the budding of my tree That would not blossom for many a May. If only I could recollect it, such A day of days! I let it come and go As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow; It seemed to mean so little, meant so much; If only now I could recall that touch, First touch of hand in hand—Did one but know!

She wrote some fine love poetry. I've included a link to read more about her and some of her other poems. http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/716