Christina Rossetti - Soeur Louise de la Miséricorde

Soeur Louise de la Miséricorde

I have desired, and I have been desired;
  But now the days are over of desire,
  Now dust and dying embers mock my fire;
Where is the hire for which my life was hired?
  Oh vanity of vanities, desire!

Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure,
  Longing and love, a disenkindled fire,
  And memory a bottomless gulf of mire,
And love a fount of tears outrunning measure;
  Oh vanity of vanities, desire!

Now from my heart, love's deathbed, trickles, trickles,
  Drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire,
  The dross of life, of love, of spent desire;
Alas, my rose of life gone all to prickles,--
  Oh vanity of vanities, desire!

Oh vanity of vanities, desire;
  Stunting my hope which might have strained up higher,
  Turning my garden plot to barren mire;
Oh death-struck love, oh disenkindled fire,
  Oh vanity of vanities, desire!

Soeur Louise: does desire destroy her, or does ageing destroy her desire?

 This is quite a tricky poem from Rossetti – partly, because she’s chosen a real person for her speaker, and partly

The Duchess de Valliere – Soeur Louisebecause it’s not always clear whether or not desire is a terrible thing. It’s easy to think it is at first – “vanity of vanities”, burning life and love, leaving the garden a “barren mire” – ouch! But there’s also something there about not being able to feel desire anymore which makes it a bit more ambiguous and raises the question: is it the loss of feeling that’s being described?

Soeur Louise was a real person, hence the 1674 date in the title. She was the Duchess de la Valliere, one of Louis XIV’s mistresses. She had several children with him then caused a great scandal in court when she converted to Catholicism, eventually becoming a nun. A “misericorde” used to be a long narrow dagger used to grant injured knights an honourable death – so her adopted name translates as “Sister Louise of Mercy”.

I have desired, and I have been desired;

But now the days are over of desire, 

Now dust and dying embers mock my fire; 

Where is the hire for which my life was hired?

Oh vanity of vanities, desire!

The constant repetition of “desire and “longing” is indicative of Rossetti’s attempts to understand and portray Louise’s state of mind. The first line is a strong statement of equality – there’s no attempts to claim a distance from desire. Rossetti’s speakers often own their desire, rather than rejecting it.

The language here has connotation of funerals and death – “dust,”, “dying embers” – which could have been caused by desire which has now burned out leaving nothing behind – “mocking” her previous belief that this was important. The rhetorical question of the fifth line begins to sound more despairing, too, particularly when followed with the shorter exclamative refrain: “Oh vanity of vanities,…