Soeur Louise De La Miséricorde
A speaker who once desired and was desired now laments spent passion and memories that bring tears. Desire has left love extinguished and stunted hope that might have reached higher.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Melancholic Poetry · 235 words
First lines
(1674.)
I have desired, and I have been desired; / But now the days are over of desire, / Now dust and dying embers mock my fire; / Where is the hire for which my life was hired? / Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure, / Longing and love, a disenkindled fire, / And memory a bottomless gulf of mire, / And love a fount of tears outrunning measure; / Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Now from my heart, love's deathbed, trickles, trickles, / Drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire, / The dross of life, of love, of spent desire; / Alas, my rose of life gone all to prickles, -- / Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Four stanzas voice a speaker's exhausted longing through rhyme and a repeated lament about the vanity of desire.
- Melancholic Poetry — The speaker describes vanished pleasure, memories that bring tears, and love reduced to an extinguished fire.
Tags
desire · lost love · memory · regret · frustrated hope
What this Textopian page supports
Soeur Louise De La Miséricorde 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: Lyric Poetry, Melancholic Poetry
- Length: 235 words
- Structure: 1 section, 5 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Difficult (College Level)
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