I Loved You First - Christina Rossetti | Eternal Poems

Visit eternalpoems.org for more...

--

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 contrued 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.

--

AUTHOR:
Christina Rossetti was born on December 5, 1830 in London, England. She was an English poet who wrote romantic, devotional, and children's poems.

--

ATTRIBUTION:
Christina Rossetti's portrait from Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

--

Subscribe to Eternal Poems for more inspiring, motivating, and relaxing classic poems; read by poet avatars, with ambient sounds.

Eternal Poems creates its videos from the synergy of works in the public domain, modern media, computer animation, and artificial intelligence to bring the classic poems we love back to life and truly eternal.