My dad died last week. I say that not to garner sympathy from you, my 4 readers, but to explain and introduce the poem below. Life would not be life, if people did not die. And when we know the dying or dead person, our thoughts migrate inward, full of mortal (not morbid) thoughts. My experience suggests those thoughts tend toward the universal: why now? why this way? what about me? and what is the meaning of life?
Christina Georgina Rossetti differs from the rest of us when it came to answering those questions, mostly due to her phenomenal talent as a poet. Christina Rossetti was something of a wonder: sister to the famed painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, both founders of the self-named Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, she sat often as model for the movement's many painters and sculptors. She was a sort-of early Georgia O'Keefe, only better. A.S. Byatt makes no bones that Christina Rossetti was Byatt's template for the poet at the center of her novel, Possession; no surprise that Byatt's publisher used the Pre-Raphaelite painting, The Beguiling of Merlin (by Edward Burne-Jones) for that novel's cover art. Guess who was its model.
As is usual for most Artists, Rossetti's early poems were almost exclusively about death and loss. It was only as she matured, as both person and Poet, that her craft and talent soared to new heights. Her later poetry sought moral certitudes, universal truths, answers (or at least the questions) applicable to all readers. To all people. The Thread of Life (below) is not Christina's most widely acclaimed poem, but is my favorite...
Christina Rossetti, by the time she wrote this poem, was well-versed - er, well-schooled - in poetic forms and structure. For example, each sonnet uses the Petrarchan tradition, with the rhyming scheme of each octave, ABBAACCA, and of each sestet, DEDEDE. Note also Rossetti's deft use of anaphora (repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses) and epistrophe, or epiphora (repeating words at the clauses' ends)...
Okay, clear enough which is the anaphora and which the epiphora. But her brilliance does not end there; look no farther than her "bound/band/bind" -- a brilliant use of verb tense and homonyms, in the same root word.
I empathize with the narrator during Stanza 2. Who has never felt caught on the outside looking in? Heck, advertisers make use of this emotional trap: drink this beer (soda, whatever), drive this car, and be a member of the Cool People group which members already drink that beer or drive that car, else they would not be a member, Silly. Must be clear here, though, that is NOT Rossetti's intended meaning; she was after something more spiritual, less secular, than such nonsense. While the narrator stands aloof, alone and apart from everyone and everything else - including all of nature, she still has herself to fall back upon.
Which brings me to the passage that calls to me, time and again, Stanza 3, despite its call to Christ, the Redeemer. But before that happens...
How steadfast she stands, in this life and into the next, alone and apart from all that is human, all that is life. But even that is not enough for her; she (the narrator) wants more, wants redemption, so she reaches out...
Rossetti returns to that malleable change in tense (give/gave/gives), with its mutable changes in meaning. Thus she ends perfectly, the perfect poem.
As I mentioned, my dad died. No redemption occurred, only pain. And a death, long foretold, but with an undeserved indignity wrought by a doctor and a hospital looking only to bolster the shared bottom line, not strive to ease my dad's suffering. So while I find no redemption, this instance or ever, perhaps you will. Or perhaps you already have found something equally meaningful.
Pray tell.
Christina Georgina Rossetti differs from the rest of us when it came to answering those questions, mostly due to her phenomenal talent as a poet. Christina Rossetti was something of a wonder: sister to the famed painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, both founders of the self-named Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, she sat often as model for the movement's many painters and sculptors. She was a sort-of early Georgia O'Keefe, only better. A.S. Byatt makes no bones that Christina Rossetti was Byatt's template for the poet at the center of her novel, Possession; no surprise that Byatt's publisher used the Pre-Raphaelite painting, The Beguiling of Merlin (by Edward Burne-Jones) for that novel's cover art. Guess who was its model.
As is usual for most Artists, Rossetti's early poems were almost exclusively about death and loss. It was only as she matured, as both person and Poet, that her craft and talent soared to new heights. Her later poetry sought moral certitudes, universal truths, answers (or at least the questions) applicable to all readers. To all people. The Thread of Life (below) is not Christina's most widely acclaimed poem, but is my favorite...
The Thread of Life
Christina Georgina Rossetti
I
The irresponsive silence of the land,
The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
Speak both one message of one sense to me:--
Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band
Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;
But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?
What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand?--
And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,
And sometimes I remember days of old
When fellowship seemed not so far to seek
And all the world and I seemed much less cold,
And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold,
And hope felt strong and life itself not weak.
II
Thus am I mine own prison. Everything
Around me free and sunny and at ease:
Or if in shadow, in a shade of trees
Which the sun kisses, where the gay birds sing
And where all winds make various murmuring;
Where bees are found, with honey for the bees;
Where sounds are music, and where silences
Are music of an unlike fashioning.
Then gaze I at the merrymaking crew,
And smile a moment and a moment sigh
Thinking: Why can I not rejoice with you?
But soon I put the foolish fancy by:
I am not what I have nor what I do;
But what I was I am, I am even I.
III
Therefore myself is that one only thing
I hold to use or waste, to keep or give;
My sole possession every day I live,
And still mine own despite Time's winnowing.
Ever mine own, while moons and seasons bring
From crudeness ripeness mellow and sanitive;
Ever mine own, till Death shall ply his sieve;
And still mine own, when saints break grave and sing.
And this myself as king unto my King
I give, to Him Who gave Himself for me;
Who gives Himself to me, and bids me sing
A sweet new song of His redeemed set free;
he bids me sing: O death, where is thy sting?
And sing: O grave, where is thy victory?
Christina Rossetti, by the time she wrote this poem, was well-versed - er, well-schooled - in poetic forms and structure. For example, each sonnet uses the Petrarchan tradition, with the rhyming scheme of each octave, ABBAACCA, and of each sestet, DEDEDE. Note also Rossetti's deft use of anaphora (repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses) and epistrophe, or epiphora (repeating words at the clauses' ends)...
The irresponsive silence of the land,
The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
Speak both one message of one sense to me:--
Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band
Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;
But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?
What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand?--
Okay, clear enough which is the anaphora and which the epiphora. But her brilliance does not end there; look no farther than her "bound/band/bind" -- a brilliant use of verb tense and homonyms, in the same root word.
I empathize with the narrator during Stanza 2. Who has never felt caught on the outside looking in? Heck, advertisers make use of this emotional trap: drink this beer (soda, whatever), drive this car, and be a member of the Cool People group which members already drink that beer or drive that car, else they would not be a member, Silly. Must be clear here, though, that is NOT Rossetti's intended meaning; she was after something more spiritual, less secular, than such nonsense. While the narrator stands aloof, alone and apart from everyone and everything else - including all of nature, she still has herself to fall back upon.
I am not what I have nor what I do;
But what I was I am, I am even I.
Which brings me to the passage that calls to me, time and again, Stanza 3, despite its call to Christ, the Redeemer. But before that happens...
Therefore myself is that one only thing
I hold to use or waste, to keep or give;
My sole possession every day I live,
And still mine own despite Time's winnowing.
Ever mine own, while moons and seasons bring
From crudeness ripeness mellow and sanitive;
Ever mine own, till Death shall ply his sieve;
And still mine own, when saints break grave and sing
How steadfast she stands, in this life and into the next, alone and apart from all that is human, all that is life. But even that is not enough for her; she (the narrator) wants more, wants redemption, so she reaches out...
I give, to Him Who gave Himself for me;
Who gives Himself to me
Rossetti returns to that malleable change in tense (give/gave/gives), with its mutable changes in meaning. Thus she ends perfectly, the perfect poem.
As I mentioned, my dad died. No redemption occurred, only pain. And a death, long foretold, but with an undeserved indignity wrought by a doctor and a hospital looking only to bolster the shared bottom line, not strive to ease my dad's suffering. So while I find no redemption, this instance or ever, perhaps you will. Or perhaps you already have found something equally meaningful.
Pray tell.
Reading...
