“Echo,” a poem by Christina Rossetti, reveals the universal longing for a loved one departed and the nature of one’s thoughts as they echo without a person on the other end to respond. The speaker in the poem, perhaps a woman, appears to have lost her lover to some kind of death. She wishes to be reunited with her lover, either in dreams, or in her own death. The speaker utilizes sestet stanza units, specific meter with metrical variations, and repetition to enact the experience of longing. The poem divides into three stanzas, each six lines, with an ababcc rhyme scheme. Though a few of the lines in each stanza are enjambed, the sixth line of each stanza concludes with a period, giving each stanza the sense of being an individual unit. Each
…show more content…
The memory of the lover remains prominent in the first stanza with “hope and love of finished years,” desiring more time together (6). The next stanza reveals that the speaker dreamt of the lover speaking, “O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,” revealing the sweetness of “seeing” her lover, as well as the bitter nature of that dream, as it was only a dream (7). The dream cannot suffice, as the speaker wishes for the “slow door” of heaven to open for her “letting [her] in” and closing her in, leaving the speaker with her lover. Though the dream was painful, the final stanza begins with “Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live,” as the speaker still desires to meet her love in dreams (13). In the line “My very life again …show more content…
The variance is seen in iambic trimeter and iambic dimeter lines. The stanzas couple in iambic trimeter and iambic dimeter three times: “As sunlight on a stream; / Come back in tears,” “Where thirsting longing eyes / Watch the slow door,” and “Pulse for pulse, breath for breath: / Speak low, lean low” (4-5, 10-11, 16-17). These lines provide a change in rhythm that enacts the situation of longing by pausing over a description, like “as sunlight on a stream” and “thirsting longing eyes,” or intimate longing, like “come back in tears” and “pulse for pulse, breath for
The memory of the lover remains prominent in the first stanza with “hope and love of finished years,” desiring more time together (6). The next stanza reveals that the speaker dreamt of the lover speaking, “O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,” revealing the sweetness of “seeing” her lover, as well as the bitter nature of that dream, as it was only a dream (7). The dream cannot suffice, as the speaker wishes for the “slow door” of heaven to open for her “letting [her] in” and closing her in, leaving the speaker with her lover. Though the dream was painful, the final stanza begins with “Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live,” as the speaker still desires to meet her love in dreams (13). In the line “My very life again …show more content…
The variance is seen in iambic trimeter and iambic dimeter lines. The stanzas couple in iambic trimeter and iambic dimeter three times: “As sunlight on a stream; / Come back in tears,” “Where thirsting longing eyes / Watch the slow door,” and “Pulse for pulse, breath for breath: / Speak low, lean low” (4-5, 10-11, 16-17). These lines provide a change in rhythm that enacts the situation of longing by pausing over a description, like “as sunlight on a stream” and “thirsting longing eyes,” or intimate longing, like “come back in tears” and “pulse for pulse, breath for