Love Lies Bleeding
The speaker describes yesterday's encounter with love personified as rising from its grave, finding no recognition while old feelings revive. Remembering a youthful parting with hope dead but love still alive, the speaker denies that the encounter amounts to a meeting.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Sonnet, Love Poetry, Lyric Poetry · 178 words
First lines
Love that is dead and buried, yesterday / Out of his grave rose up before my face, / No recognition in his look, no trace / Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and grey. / While I, remembering, found no word to say, / But felt my quickened heart leap in its place; / Caught afterglow thrown back from long set days, / Caught echoes of all music passed away. / Was this indeed to meet? -- I mind me yet / In youth we met when hope and love were quick, / We parted with hope dead, but love alive: / I mind me how we parted then heart sick, / Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive: -- / Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.
Genres
- Sonnet — Fourteen rhymed lines turn from an encounter with personified love to a remembered parting and a final denial of reunion.
- Love Poetry — The speaker remembers love surviving a hopeless parting and contrasts those feelings with love's present lack of recognition.
- Lyric Poetry — The first-person voice records a quickened heartbeat, revived memories and the painful refusal to call the encounter a meeting.
Tags
lost love · parting · memory · failed reunion · personification · sonnet
What this Textopian page supports
Love Lies Bleeding is listed on Textopian as a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Sonnet, Love Poetry, Lyric Poetry
- Length: 178 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for Love Lies Bleeding by Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
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