"From the Antique" by Christina Rossetti

 

From the Antique

It's a weary life, it is, she said:

Doubly blank in a woman's lot:

I wish and I wish I were a man:

Or, better then any being, were not:

 

Were nothing at all in all the world,

Not a body and not a soul:

Not so much as a grain of dust

Or a drop of water from pole to pole.

 

Still the world would wag on the same,

Still the seasons go and come:

Blossoms bloom as in days of old,

Cherries ripen and wild bees hum.

 

None would miss me in all the world,

How much less would care or weep:

I should be nothing, while all the rest

Would wake and weary and fall asleep.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

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Who wrote the poem "From the Antique"?

Christina Rossetti (December 5, 1830 ~ December 29, 1894)

Christina Rossetti was an English poet who was lauded as one of the foremost female poets of the 19th-century Victorian era. She wrote romantic, devotional, and children's poems, marked by symbolism and intense feeling. Her literary status was often compared to that of Elizabeth Barren Browning, and upon Browning's death in 1861, Rossetti was hailed as Browning's rightful successor. She opposed slavery, cruelty to animals, and the exploitation of girls in under-age prostitution. Rossetti suffered from Graves' disease in the later decades of her life. In 1893, she was diagnosed of breast cancer and died of a recurrence in 1894.

"From the Antique" explanation

The female speaker in the poem laments the weariness of life and wishes to be a man. She even prefers to be non-existent at all. Perhaps the poem is about the transience of life. Or perhaps it is about the plight of women in the Victorian era.