rossetti poems Flashcards
(21 cards)
some ladies dress in muslim full and white
Satirical poem
The poem’s speaker looks around at the people of Victorian London and finds many of them ridiculous. Everyone the speaker lays eyes on seems both shallow and self-deceiving; nobody seems to notice what fools they’re making of themselves. If the whole world were flooded, there are plenty of people whom the speaker would be perfectly happy to watch “sink.”
Remember
From the perspective of the person who’s to be mourned
In this sonnet, the speaker begs a loved one to remember her after her death—but also not to feel guilty if he forgets her, so long as she’s made some permanent mark on his life and he remains happy
The World
The poem begins with the speaker stating that during the day the world “woos” him. He is taken in by the softness and fairness, or beauty, of the scenes. Then night comes and everything changes. The landscape is transformed and he is confronted with everything “Loathsome and foul.”
The day is beautiful, filled with “sweet flowers” and “Ripe fruits.” While the night is a place of nothingness. There is no prayer and there is no joy. The speaker describes how after looking at the situation from afar he has come to the conclusion that day is the falsehood. It is nothing but a front put on by the darkness in order to draw one into temptation.
echo
The speaker begs their departed lover to visit them in dreams, where they can see their lover’s face again and relive all their past happiness. But while dreaming about this person gives the speaker much-needed relief from the pain of loss, their insistence on living in dreams and memories causes them to feel like an “Echo”—as if they don’t really exist in the present at all.
May
The speaker tells her listener that there is something important she can’t tell them. This does not impede her from talking around “it.” Whatever happened to her occurred in May, in days she now recalls fondly, and with a deep longing.
She loved this time period for how it sat on the edge of life. Death was so far off, the month seemed without end. She also states that now that the event is in the past, she feels cold and empty.
A Birthday
Celebrates the passionate joy of love. Now that the speaker’s “love” has arrived, they feel like their life has officially begun. They command that an ornately decorated “dais” (a kind of raised platform for a throne) be made to honour the arrival of their love. Rossetti was deeply religious, and while this love at first sounds romantic in nature, the speaker might also be talking about God
An Apple Gathering
The poem’s speaker is a young woman who’s been unlucky and unwise in love: having used the blossoms of her symbolic apple tree to make herself beautiful for her lover, Willie, she now finds that she has no apples left to harvest—and that Willie has left her for another woman. The poem reflects on the dangers of head-over-heels love, the pain of abandonment, and the cruelty of sexual double standards.
Maude Clare
Tells the story of an aristocrat named Lord Thomas who chooses to marry the wholesome Nell, a seemingly ideal Victorian bride, over the bold Maude Clare, whose reputation has been ruined as a result of her previous romance with Lord Thomas. By depicting the spurned Maude Clare with sympathy—and turning an unflinching gaze on the callous, consequence-free actions of Lord Thomas—”Maude Clare” reveals the misogynistic double standards at the heart of Victorian society.
At Home
Tale of a ghost who discovers that all their loved ones have forgotten them. The ghostly speaker returns to haunt a “familiar room” where they once rejoiced in the company of the people they loved in life and is hurt to find that nobody seems to care that they’re gone. The living are pretty quick to forget the dead—perhaps because they don’t much like the thought that they, too, will be among the dead some day.
Up-Hill
Structured as a question-and-answer dialogue, it compares life to a “journey” and death to a “resting-place” after that journey. The poem warns that death is inevitable and universal, but doesn’t explicitly guarantee any reward beyond the grave—apart from the simple “comfort” of rest itself. Yet it can also be read in consoling terms, as a suggestion that heaven awaits like a welcoming “inn” for weary souls.
Goblin Market
What Would I Give?
The speaker wonders what she’d do to have a warm heart. Her own heart is the exact opposite of what a heart is supposed to be. It is cold, small, and like a stone in her chest. It does not allow her access to the feelings she needs in order to create lasting relationships. Her state of being influences her ability to communicate. She mourns her lack of words—for both her friends and God. Due to this struggle, she does not have any external warmth either.
Rossetti concludes the poem with a wish that her speaker feels “scalding tears.” These burning drops of water would wash away the past. Perhaps she would be free of all of her restraints if only she could cry.
Twice
Story of a heartbroken woman who, after being rejected by her beloved, turns to God for solace.
Memory
Explores the difficulty she faces in struggling with the connection between Earth and Heaven. Although Rossetti feels the love on earth, she decides to reject that part of her human connection, instead of devoting herself to God. While she suffers from this choice, a part of the love she feels never dies
In the bleak midwinter (a christmas carol)
The speaker describes the state of a specific evening. It is a “bleak midwinter” day, the air is frosty, and it seems as if the Earth is frozen solid. The snow has been falling ceaselessly for hours. This is the day of Christ’s birth. She describes the manger into which Christ was born and how even though it was poor and cold, it was enough for him. He did not long for more. There were many who came to see him but the most important person of all was his mother who, “with a kiss,” worshipped him.
The speaker asks of herself what she could possibly bring to the Christ child as she is so poor. She is no “Wise man” or “shepherd” who could bring a lamb. In the last line, she realizes that all she would need to give is her heart.
Passing and glassing
The poem begins with the speaker stating that the world is used by women as a looking glass. They look out at its innumerable changes and transformations and see their own path through time. When their worlds change, they know that they are changing too. Death is coming closer and soon they will be among the withered flowers on the ground.
The speaker pushes the idea that just because a beautiful thing has been transformed doesn’t mean that it has lost any of its worth.
She explains how womankind need not subscribe to the societal standards of value and beauty. There is much to be gained through age, such as wisdom on “good and ill.” She also expressed the simple fact that nothing happening now is new. Life on earth is born, ages, and then dies. That is how it’s always been and how it always will be.
piteous my rhyme is
Offers two contrasting perspectives on love. The first stanza suggests that love is fleeting and only ends in disappointment, agony, and futility. Love, in this negative view, isn’t worth much. The second stanza, by contrast, suggests that love is everything. It presents love’s ability to endure through pain as part of its beauty and suggests that an eternal, transcendent, and selfless love lasts beyond death.
a helpmeet for him
The poem begins with the speaker stating that women were made for men. Their job is to charm and “Be not afraid” of their partners. It doesn’t matter what the man does, the woman must maintain her womanliness. The speaker does not deny that women are strong, but that strength needs to be hidden behind layers of meekness. This, she thinks, is the proper way to act. The poem concludes with the speaker comparing women to Christ. They are just as hopeful and representative of good as he is.
as froth on the face of he deep
The poem contains several similes, all of which speak to the importance of having God in one’s life. The images are generally quite abstract, but bring the reader from the intangible down to the recognizable. By the time one gets to the end of the poem, it is clear that all of these comparisons were meant to bolster one’s view of God in the workings of the world. Nothing can function without his presence.
our mothers, lovely women pitful
The speaker states that all mothers are lovely and pitiful. They live hard, brave, and troubled lives that stay with their children. This is due to their graciousness in life and death. They give everything. Her memories tell her that “we,” referring to the offspring of dead mothers, did as their mothers did. They all worked hard, learned to live in their circumstances, were patient, and maintained hope in the face of fear. The poem concludes with the speaker wondering whether or not the mothers in Paradise can see their children below. Then, if they can, what do they think about the lives they are leading? Do they cry happy tears? Can her mother bear to look at her?
babylon the great
Issues a prophetic warning against sin. The poem describes Babylon herself, a figure from the biblical Book of Revelation who symbolises idolatry: the worship of worldly pleasures and false gods over the true God. As the speaker imagines her, Babylon is hideously ugly yet has the power to allure and entrap those foolish enough to gaze upon her. The speaker thunderously warns all who listen to look away, or else risk burning up alongside Babylon when Judgement Day arrives.
