Explore "Monna Innominata: a Sonnet of Sonnets" by Christina Georgina Rossetti on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"O dignitosa coscienza e netta! " -- Dante. / "Spirto più acceso di virtuti ardenti. " -- Petrarca.
Thinking of you, and all that was, and all / That might have been and now can never be, / I feel your honored excellence, and see / Myself unworthy of the happier call: / For woe is me who walk so apt to fall, / So apt to shrink afraid, so apt to flee, / Apt to lie down and die (ah, woe is me! ) / Faithless and hopeless turning to the wall. / And yet not hopeless quite nor faithless quite, / Because not loveless; love may toil all night, / But take at morning; wrestle till the break / Of day, but then wield power with God and man: -- / So take I heart of grace as best I can, / Ready to spend and be spent for your sake.