KU UG Sem5 Unit-III: Sonnets Are Full of Love- By Christina Rossetti (Poem and summary)

 

Kakatiya University- UG English, Semester-V

 UNIT-III

Sonnets Are Full of Love- By Christina Rossetti 

 

Poem

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome

Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart's quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstare while I go and come
And so because you love me, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honoured name:
In you not fourscore years can dim the flame
Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws
Of time and change and mortal life and death.

Explanation

About the poet: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) is an English writer belongs to Romantic age and Pre Raphaelite movement. She was a sister of the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Rossetti was educated at home by her parents, and her mother in particular had a strong role to pay in her development as a writer. It's said that before she had even learned to write, Rossetti had dictated her first story to her mother. “Goblin Market" is her famous poem.

Back ground of the poem: Sonnet is a 14 line poem. She wrote various sonnets addressed to her mother. The poem is written after her mother’s 80^th birthday and dedicated to her mother. Here, Rossetti focuses on the first Love' in her life, her mother.

Summary: Cristina Rossetti is the speaker of the poem. She begins the poem by saying that she had written many sonnets about her mother. She also states that she is going to write one more poem in honor of her. This poem is about her first love towards her mother. She says that her mother is her “first Love”, She says that this poem is for my mother, the first and foremost of my angels.

She says that my heart is home for my mother. She thanks her mother for teaching the knowledge of the world. She troubled her mother to learn love lore by sitting on the knee but her mother taught with any troublesome. She compares her mother to the loadstar which shows directions to navigators. Her mother always gave guidance and helped her to find right direction.

Now she has woven a wreath of songs to crown her. She says that even after fourscore (Eighty) years her love was not decreased. Finally she says that she can even overcome the death with her blessings.