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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Christina Rossetti
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from https://www.rd.com/list/love-poems/
“I wish I could remember that first day” by Christina Rossetti
I wish I could remember that first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me,
If bright or dim the season, it might be
Summer or Winter for aught I can say;
So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to foresee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom yet for many a May.
If only I could recollect it, such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand – Did one but know!
Don’t we all dream of being able to rewind time to when we met our first love for the very first time? If only we knew how special that moment was—and if only we could have held onto every memory from it. Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) captures this bittersweet nostalgia in her 1881 sonnet “I wish I could remember that first day” through nature imagery. In the 19th century, Rossetti found her voice as the youngest of a family of Italian-English scholars. Surrounded by her accomplished parents and siblings, she rose to fame as one of the Victorian era’s greatest poets.
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