Christina Rossetti

Monna Innominata

This work was published before January 1, 1931, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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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

Seasonal amnesia

She can't even remember the season—'Summer or Winter for aught I can say.' The relationship's origin has become mythically vague, like trying to remember your first conscious moment.

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 for many a May.

Delayed blooming

The tree metaphor tracks slow-burn love: she couldn't see the 'budding' that 'would not blossom for many a May.' This wasn't love at first sight—it took years to develop.

If only I could recollect it, such
A day of days! I let it come and go

Thaw paradox

'Traceless as a thaw of bygone snow'—the meeting left no mark because it seemed insignificant then. Snow melting is both dramatic transformation and complete erasure.

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!

Touch obsession

The poem climaxes on physical contact: 'First touch of hand in hand.' After 13 lines of abstract memory, she fixates on the one concrete detail she can't retrieve.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Sonnet Sequence Context

CONTEXT Monna Innominata means 'unnamed lady'—Rossetti's response to Dante and Petrarch's sonnets about Beatrice and Laura. Her 1881 preface asks: what if those women had written back? This is Sonnet 1 of a 14-poem sequence, written from the woman's perspective.

The title matters because Rossetti is deliberately inverting the courtly love tradition. Male poets immortalized their beloveds; Rossetti gives voice to the silent muse. But notice her twist: this speaker is just as obsessed with memory and loss as any male Petrarchan lover. She's not rejecting the tradition—she's claiming it.

The form is a Petrarchan sonnet (octave/sestet split), but Rossetti uses an unusual rhyme scheme: ABBAABBA CDCDCD. That final couplet feel comes from the repeated 'know/go' sounds, even though it's technically a sestet. She's blending Italian and English sonnet traditions.

The Irony of Insignificant Beginnings

The poem's engine is retrospective irony: 'It seemed to mean so little, meant so much.' Everything hinges on this reversal. The speaker's torment isn't that she lost something—it's that she didn't know to pay attention when she had it.

Notice how memory fails precisely where it matters most. She can't remember if it was 'bright or dim,' can't recall the season, can't retrieve the touch. The vagueness isn't poetic license—it's the point. Ordinary moments don't announce themselves as life-changing.

The tree metaphor does crucial work in lines 7-8. 'The budding of my tree / That would not blossom for many a May' suggests love that develops slowly, invisibly. She's not describing love at first sight but something more realistic: affection that took years to recognize as love. The 'many a May' detail implies multiple springs passed before the flowering—this is long-term intimacy, not romance.

That final dash—'Did one but know!'—is the poem's emotional center. It's both universal lament and specific regret. If we knew which moments would matter, we'd pay attention. But we can't, so we don't, and then we spend sonnets trying to remember what we never properly noticed.