Poems (Rossetti, 1901)/The Key-Note

by Christina Georgina Rossetti

THE SECOND SERIES

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 honoured 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.

THE KEY-NOTE.

WHERE are the songs I used to know,
 Where are the notes I used to sing?
 I have forgotten everything
I used to know so long ago;
Summer has followed after Spring;
 Now Autumn is so shrunk and sere,
I scarcely think a sadder thing
 Can be the Winter of my year.

Yet Robin sings through Winter's rest,
 When bushes put their berries on;
 While they their ruddy jewels don,
He sings out of a ruddy breast;
The hips and haws and ruddy breast
 Make one spot warm where snowflakes lie,
They break and cheer the unlovely rest
 Of Winter's pause—and why not I?