Explore "Monna Innominata: a Sonnet of Sonnets" by Christina Georgina Rossetti on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"Or puoi la quantitate / Comprender de l'amor che a te mi scalda. " -- Dante. / "Non vo' che da tal nodo amor mi scioglia. " -- Petrarca.
Trust me, I have not earned 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.