To My First Love, My Mother

Spiritual Sunday

Christina Rossetti honors her mother with this unorthodox sonnet that speaks for itself. The “blessed glow” of Mother Love “transcends the laws/ Of time and change and mortal life and death.”

Apparently Rossetti’s mother encouraged her in her sonnet writing, giving the poem additional resonance. Happy Mother’s Day to the many mothers in my life.

Sonnets are full
of love, and this my tome

      Has many sonnets: so here now shall
be

   One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from
me

To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,

   To my first Love, my Mother, on whose
knee

I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;

   Whose service is my special dignity,

And she my loadstar while I go and come.

And so because you love me, and because

   I love you, Mother, I have woven a
wreath

      Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored
name:

      In you not fourscore years can dim
the flame

Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws

   Of time and change and mortal life and
death.