1. Welcome, O Best Beloved
Welcome, O best belovèd—
Life of my life —for lo !
All that I ask you promise,
All that I seek you know.
The dim grass stirs with your footstep.
The blue dusk throbs with your smile ;
I and the world of glory
Are one for a little while.
The spring sun shows me your shadow.
The spring wind bears me your breath.
You are mine for a passing moment,
But I am yours to the death.
-Rosamund Marriott Watson
2. If Thou Must Love Me (Sonnet 14)
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say,
“I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning
3. St. Valentine’s Day
The South is a dream of flowers
With a jewel for sky and sea,
Rose-crowns for the dancing hours,
Gold fruits upon every tree;
But cold from the North
The wind blows forth
That blows my love to me.
The stars in the South are gold
Like lamps between sky and sea;
The flowers that the forests hold
Like stars between tree and tree;
But little and white
Is the pale moon’s light
That lights my love to me.
In the South the orange grove
Makes dusk by the dusky sea,
White palaces wrought for love
Gleam white between tree and tree,
But under bare boughs
Is the little house
Warm-lit for my love and me.
-Edith Nesbit
4. A World of Change and Loss (February 14, 1833)
A world of change and loss, a world of death,
Of heart and eyes that fail, of labouring breath,
Of pains to bear and painful deeds to do:—
Nevertheless a world of life to come
And love; where you’re at home, while in our home
Your Valentine rejoices having you.
-Christina Rossetti
5. My Heart Is Like a Singing Bird
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
-Christina Rossetti
Victorian Valentines is a cycle of five songs—settings of poems by four Victorian women from England. Two of the poets are well-known: Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) and Christina Rossetti (1830–1894). The other two are lesser-known poets: Rosamund Marriott Watson (1860–1911) and Edith Nesbit (1858–1924).
Rosamund Marriott Watson wrote many articles about gardening, interior design, art, and fashion for various magazines. However, her poetry was her greatest success. Her poems use a variety of forms and cover a wide range of topics. For a couple of years, she was the editor of Sylvia’s Journal, a feminist-leaning women’s monthly magazine. “Welcome, O Best Beloved” is a setting of the second half of a poem entitled “Chimæra,” which is from Watson’s 1891 publication, A Summer Night and Other Poems.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote poetry from the age of 4, and her first published book of poems came in 1844. This publication drew the admiration of many readers, including Robert Browning, who wrote her a fan letter. This correspondence grew into a courtship, and the couple married in 1845. During their marriage, Elizabeth’s reputation exceeded that of her husband. Her poetry influenced other writers, including the American poets Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allen Poe. In addition to writing, Elizabeth campaigned for the abolition of slavery and supported child labor reform. “If Thou Must Love Me” is number 14 from her collection of 44 love sonnets entitled Sonnets from the Portuguese, published in 1850.
Edith Nesbit is best known as an author of books for children, but she also wrote poetry, novels, horror stories, and other short stories. In addition, she was a political activist and co-founder of the Fabian Society, a socialist organization. Although she was her family’s breadwinner, she did not champion women’s rights. She opposed women’s suffrage, mainly because she was afraid that women would vote for the Tory Party, thus harming the socialist cause. Some of her work was published in Sylvia’s Journal while it was under the editorship of Rosamund Marriott Watson.
Christina Rossetti’s first published poems appeared in the literary magazine Athenaeum in 1848. Her first commercially printed poetry collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems, was published in 1862 and brought her much praise from many people, including the well-known poets Alfred Tennyson and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Some critics called her the natural successor to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who had died one year earlier. In addition to writing, she worked as a volunteer at a refuge for ex-prostitutes. She opposed slavery in the US (it had been abolished in the UK in 1834), cruelty to animals, and the exploitation of girls in under-age prostitution. For most of her life, she lived with her mother, for whom she was in the habit of writing a poem on Valentine’s Day. “A World of Change and Loss” is her poem from 1883, when her mother was 82 years old. “My Heart Is Like a Singing Bird” is a setting of Rossetti’s poem “A Birthday” from Goblin Market and Other Poems.
-Timothy Hoekman
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