2.13.2009

Valentine Poem For Mom: "Sonnets Are Full of Love" by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) wrote this sonnet to dedicate her fourth volume of poems to her mother, with whom she lived until her mother died in 1886.  When A Pageant and Other Poems was published in 1881, the poet was 51 and the poet's mom was 80 ("fourscore years").  It's especially touching that 51 years of cohabitation did not erode Rossetti's daughterly devotion.

Sonnets Are Full of Love
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

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 loadstar 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 honored 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.

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