Petrarchan structure
Octave (8 lines) sets the goal—paint her soul, not just her face. Sestet (6 lines) declares success and stakes his claim as gatekeeper.
Volta shift
"Lo! it is done" marks the turn. He shifts from asking Love for help to announcing he's succeeded—and now controls access to her image.
Possessive ending
The final claim is stark: want to see her? You must come through me. The artist asserts permanent ownership over how she's remembered.
Reading Notes
The Artist as Priest and Gatekeeper
Rossetti collapses painting and worship into the same act. The opening invocation—"O LORD of all compassionate control, / O Love!"—treats Love as a deity he's praying to for divine assistance. He's not just painting a portrait; he's performing a religious ritual where the canvas becomes a "shrine."
The octave's goal is ambitious: capture "her inner self the perfect whole," going "Beyond the light that the sweet glances throw." Surface beauty (glances, smiles) isn't enough. He wants to paint "The very sky and sea-line of her soul"—the horizon where her essence meets infinity. This is Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic theory in action: art should reveal spiritual truth, not just physical appearance.
The sestet's "Lo! it is done" announces success with biblical finality (echo of "It is finished"). But notice the power grab: "Her face is made her shrine." He's transformed her into a sacred object, and shrines need priests. The final couplet makes explicit what's been building: "They that would look on her must come to me." The artist doesn't just preserve her—he owns the only authorized version. Everyone else must go through him, making him the permanent mediator between the beloved and the world.
Rossetti's Obsessive Practice
CONTEXT Rossetti painted and repainted his wife Elizabeth Siddal obsessively, and after her 1862 death from laudanum overdose, his portraits became his way of keeping her present. He later buried his manuscript poems with her, then exhumed them seven years later—a pattern of possession, loss, and reclamation that mirrors this poem's dynamic.
The poem's present tense matters: "testifies," "remember and foresee." The portrait isn't a static record but an active presence. The painted eyes "remember" the past and "foresee" the future, granted an eerie life of their own. This is the Victorian fantasy of photography and portraiture—that images could capture something living, not just likeness.
The final claim—"in all years"—asserts permanence. Love's "gift" isn't the woman herself but the artist's monopoly on her image. It's simultaneously an act of devotion (preserving her forever) and control (no one sees her except through his interpretation). The poem celebrates artistic power while revealing its possessiveness: the beloved becomes the artwork, and the artwork belongs to the artist.