A Sonnet of Sonnets

Fa-So-La-La

Christina Rosseti, one of my very favoritest of poets, wrote two sonnet sequences in her life. I have only read one of them, the Monno Innominata, but it is a truly marvelous work of poetry. It is comprised of 14 sonnets, each one outstanding, and together the effect is amazing. She wrote it almost as a counterpart to the Portugese Sonnets of her contemporary Elizabeth Browning, but about unhappy instead of happy love-- she suggest in the preface that they are about a love with an insurmountable barrier. This may well be biographical-- Christina was in love with a man whom she did not marry because of their religious differences.

I wish I could just post the whole sequence... in time, perhaps... but until then one or two will have to suffice.

2

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 yet 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 seem'd 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!

6

Trust me, I have not earn'd your dear rebuke,

I love, as you would have me, God the most;

Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost,

Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look

Unready to forego what I forsook;

This say I, having counted up the cost,

This, though I be the feeblest of God's host,

The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook.

Yet while I love my God the most, I deem

That I can never love you overmuch;

I love Him more, so let me love you too;

Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such

I cannot love you if I love not Him,

I cannot love Him if I love not you.