At Last by Christina Georgina Rossetti
The speaker rejects the view of love as a source of harm, calling it a balm that breeds further love and offers bliss sufficient for life, death and resurrection. The speaker anticipates heavenly understanding and rest, when love fills heart and home and ends striving, change and fear.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Sonnet, Religious Poetry · 176 words
First lines
Many have sung of love a root of bane: / While to my mind a root of balm it is, / For love at length breeds love; sufficient bliss / For life and death and rising up again. / Surely when light of Heaven makes all things plain, / Love will grow plain with all its mysteries; / Nor shall we need to fetch from over seas / Wisdom or wealth or pleasure safe from pain. / Love in our borders, love within our heart, / Love all in all, we then shall bide at rest, / Ended for ever life's unending quest, / Ended for ever effort, change and fear: / Love all in all; -- no more that better part / Purchased, but at the cost of all things here.
Genres
- Sonnet — Fourteen rhymed lines move from a defense of love as healing to an anticipation of complete rest in love.
- Religious Poetry — The speaker links love with resurrection and expects Heaven's light to clarify its mysteries and end earthly striving.
Tags
love · heaven · resurrection · spiritual rest · sonnet
What this Textopian page supports
At Last is listed on Textopian as a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Sonnet, Religious Poetry
- Length: 176 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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- Work identity for At Last by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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