blog 6

Essay #4
English 102, 0001
Dr. C Jason Smith
October 28, 2009


Last Love [Canzone]


Love hath a chamber all of imagery;
And there is one dim nook,
A little storied web wherein my heart
From leaf to leaf is read as in a book.

One part in the middle of the web begun
and left unfinished;
a face with ravelled threads falling over
it and hiding it. Love says
that the time has come to resume and
finish this part of the web,
though much has come between since it
was begun.

For the garlands of heaven were all laid
by,
And the Daylight sucked at the breasts of
a Lie.

The wounded heart and the dying swan
Were side by side
Where the rushes coil with the turn of
the tide—
The hart and the swan.

Withinthose eyes the sedulous yearning
throe,
And all the evil of my heart
A thousand times forgotten.

Ah if you had been lost for many years,
And from the dead to-day were risen
again!




Daniel Gabriel Rossetti was born on May 12, 1828 in London England and died in April 9, 1882 in the country house of a friend on Easter Sunday. In addition to being a poet Daniel Rossetti was also a marvelous painter. In Rossetti’s poetry was described as “Victorian Poetry” due to it being written in the Victorian period. Some persons believed that Rossetti’s poems as well as his paintings contained pornography and the female body was a “specter” that indicated desire. He settled in London in 1824, married, and became Professor of Italian in King's College, London. After his first wife died he got married again however she died while giving birth to their child which also died. “Last Love” was written in 1870 and 287 poems in all.
The poem consists of six stanzas and twenty-eight lines. The poem is as most poems are centered in the page. The rhyme scheme is in ABCB in stanzas 1and 3,ABCDEFGA in stanza 2, ABCBA in stanza 4, ABCD in stanza 5 and ABC in stanza 6. The poem also consists of 7 sentences. In the poem there are multiple instances where “web” and “heart” is mentioned.
“Last Love” describes person who is in love but it didn’t last. This reader having the knowledge that Rossetti lost both his wives and that the second wife died during child birth may consider that this poem was written for the last person he loved. As in the in stanza 2 line 1 and 2 he stated that “one apart in the middle of the web begun and left unfinished” which means that when he was in love with this person the love ended prematurely in the middle and the y didn’t get to finish it to see how far they could go a better way to look at it is that this person love one died and they didn’t get the chance to see if it had lasted longer what would happen. This poem could be linked to both Rossetti’s wives as they both died. In stanza 5 lines 1 and 2 he states that “within those eyes of sedulous yearning throe” these two lines means that within the eyes of his love one he sees constant or persistent pity or sadness and agonizing trouble, throe could also mean the pain of child birth. In the last stanza he says “Ah if you had been lost for many years,And from the dead to-day were risen again!” this states the person he loved had died and that if she had risen from the dead he could spend more time with her and his web could finally be finished.