"I loved you first: but afterwards your love"

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda. – Dante
Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore,
E sol ivi con voi rimansi amore. – Petrarca
I loved you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be –
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’
With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.




This poem, by Christina Rosetti, did not surprise me at all. I chose this poem because I wanted to see

if love poems coming from relatively unknown artists are comparable to those of well known artists.

This was a poem that had content that I had expected, and furthermore was a poem that that

rhymed. Conventionally, the poems that I have read recently have not been ones that have rhymed.

Nevertheless, surprisingly, this was a poem that I could relate to and understand very easily. This is

a poem that I would give to somebody on a holiday. However, I couldn’t write something like this.

This piece illuminated different images that I was able to imagine while reading it. Definitely

something I would read to my girlfriend.