To her whose heart is my heart's quiet home,_x000D_ _x000D_ To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee_x000D_ _x000D_ I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome.
Interpretation
This quote expresses a deep affection and gratitude towards the speaker's mother as the primary source of love and comfort in their life.
In this quote, Christina Rossetti celebrates the profound bond between a mother and child, highlighting how a mother's love serves as a sanctuary of peace and understanding. The phrase 'love-lore that is not troublesome' suggests that the lessons learned from a mother about love are pure and joyful, contrasting with the complexities and challenges often associated with adult relationships.
In practice
In a Motherβs Day speech to honor maternal figures, this quote beautifully encapsulates the love shared between a mother and child.
When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree: Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet: And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget. I shall not see the shadows, I shall not feel the rain; I shall not hear the nightingale Sing on as if in pain: And dreaming through the twilight That doth not rise nor set, Haply I may remember, And haply I may forget.
We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live My very life again though cold in death; Come back to me in dreams, that I may give Pulse for pulse, breath for breath: Speak low, lean low, As long ago, my love, how long ago
Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart; My silent heart, lie still and break: Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed For a dream's sake.
I lock my door upon myself, And bar them out; but who shall wall Self from myself, most loathed of all?
When I am dead, my dearest,_x000D_ _x000D_ Sing no sad songs for me
The will of God, to which the law gives expression, is that men should defeat their enemies by loving them.
The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface: and why not? Any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person's nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell.
True love always makes a man better, no matter who the woman is that inspires it.
I've learned two things in my life. One that love is the beginning and end of all meaning. And two that it is the same thing whatever shape our souls have taken on this journey. Love is love. Is love.
Which of the two powers, Love or Music, can elevate man to the sublimest heights? ... It is a problem, and yet it seems to me that this is the answer: 'Love can give no idea of music; music can give an idea of love.' ... Why separate them? They are two wings of the soul.
Because I imagine there must be only a very, very few men in the world, that I should like to marry; and of those few, it is ten to one I may never be acquainted with one; or if I should, it is twenty to one he may not happen to be single, or to take a fancy to me.
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