Christina Rossetti Summary for poems

Twice is about a female protagonist that falls in love with a man that rejects her becasue she is "still unripe" (not mature enough)

he then in the third stanza says that he will take her back when she is of the right maturity for his taste.

In the first stanza she implies that because she is a women she isn't as smart as a man or as wise and therefore he should talk instead of her. "you should speak, not I". 

She decides not to bother with men after this point and falls in love with God which is also true of Rossetti since she joins a convent and she also never marries a man due to her not being able to find someone religious enough for her. She is happy for God to judge her although God won't judge her however she didn't want her ex lover to judge her but he did anyway which shows a contrast between the two male figures. 

The protagonist in Song when she dies doesn't want "no sad song for" her which suggest she doesn't want others to morn but to remember and be happy. She does want people to be full of life "be the green grass above me" who are around her when she dies which could suggest she wants to make sure she leaves a good life for the rest of her family when she passes away. 

The second stanza is about what will happen to the protaginst when she dies. She says that she won't "see" , "feel" , or "hear" which are also three primary senses. they suggest that in death she will loose all of her natural qulaities that make her human which could also imply that her family should not morn her because whats left of her is nothing but an empty body; not the real her. 

Remember is a poem about death that is similar to Song; When I Am Dead My Dearest. Both poems are about not grieving for the deceassed and rememebering them when they were ful of life. The wuote "Hold me by the hand" connotes affection between the two charcters, suggesting thery are most likely lovers.

The soon to be deceased also wants the lover to only remember the deceased if they will be able to live on a happy life with out them but if that is not the case then the one that lives on should forget about the deceased and move on with their lives. 

The poem is also written in the form of a sonnet (14 lines in total) which is tradiotnal used as a love poem written by a man towards a women. 

From The Antique is a poem about the harships of being a women during the Victorian era. They were regarded as being of lower social status than men and were aften treated like children throughout their lives. In Twice the protagonist at the start of the poem embraces this reality of Victorian society, however the speaker of this poem challenges this and although she isn't treated with an equal standing to men she is acknowledging that it is wrong. 

The entire first stanza is about how being a women in the Victorian era is pointless which is most likely the reason the speaker whishes "I were a man". 

The rest of the Poem is about how the world won't change just because she deosn't like the lack of equality in Victorian society "Still the world would wag on the same". Despite the way the speaker feels it is clear that she doesnt feel that she has enough influence to change the worlds feelings about equality between men and women and has simply given up on the prospect. 

Echo is a poem about the loss of a lover; similar ot that of Remember and Song; WIADMD. The poem is about how the protagonists dead lover "Come to me in the silence of the night". this suggets that the dead lover is given life in the speakers dreams. It is clear from the speakers speech that she (most likely female) had a strong love for her husband. "how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet".

The speaker uses dreams as a sort of passage way to reach out to her dead husband for they are both the most alive in their dreams and they are also the most happy together in their dreams.  

Shut Out is a poem about Eve being cast out of the Garden of Eden and wanting to get back to her garden. She attamepts to peer through the hole open spaces between the gate however the spirit then builds a wall that "left no loop-hole" which made it so Eve couldn't even see her old garden that had been taken from her "The garden was mine, and now lost".

In the last two stanzas of the poem she sees a "viole bed" where "a lark had mad her nest" this could suggest that life will still be ok on Earth even though she has been kicked out of paradise. Earth may not be the Garden of Eden but its still a good place. 

In The Round Tower is set in June 8th 1857 in India during the Indian Mutiny. The couples are trapped in a tower waiting for the Indian mutineers to break in and kill them. The male at the end of the poem kills his wife and them himself to prevent a brutal bloody death from the "swarming howling wretches" which are the words that supposedly Skene used to describe the Indian people. This concept also shows a sense of superiority that a lot of Rossetti's poems have; however this poem is also very diffent due to the location the poem is set (since most of rossetti's work is set in Europe and is not usually to do with colonial events of the time). 

The female character asks Skene if "it will hurt much" which is a very moving part of the poem which makes the reader feel sorrow for the male and female who face certain death. What is particularly interesting about the poem is unlike many of the others its based on a true story however in what really happend the couple didn't actually kill each other and they were murdered by the Indian Mutineers.