For reasons unclear I find I’ve never mentioned that this was the Christina Rosetti poem I read at the Lindners’ wedding last Summer. Infinitely re-readable, carefully balanced, not at all maudlin, but not without sentiment, and much less hackneyed than Shakespeare for a wedding reading. (Thereby proving that a childhood of reading despised Victorian poetry was not entirely a misspent one for some purposes.)
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.
Best of the Transparent Hummingbird