Broken Music Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Broken Music

Rating: 2.9


The mother will not turn, who thinks she hears
Her nursling's speech first grow articulate;
But breathless with averted eyes elate
She sits, with open lips and open ears,
That it may call her twice. 'Mid doubts and fears
Thus oft my soul has hearkened; till the song,
A central moan for days, at length found tongue,
And the sweet music welled and the sweet tears.

But now, whatever while the soul is fain
To list that wonted murmur, as it were
The speech-bound sea-shell's low importunate strain, -
No breath of song, thy voice alone is there,
O bitterly beloved! and all her gain
Is but the pang of unpermitted prayer.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Gone Away 15 March 2010

Rossetti begins by desribing the elation felt by a mother when her infant's babble becomes articulate. 'Thus oft...' refers I think to the process the poet goes through when composing, conceiving the idea for a poem and turning it into 'sweet music', comparing this to a mother's love for their creation, their child. But now the only voice he hears is that of his bitterly beloved and so his music is broken. Rossetti wrote this poem after the death of his wife by laudanum overdose and a year previously the death of their still born daughter. Death by suicide was condemned by the church perhaps refering to the pang of unpermitted prayer?

7 5 Reply
Kevin Straw 15 March 2010

The charm of the first verse is in the way the mother does not turn to the child when it first speaks because she longs to hear it speak again. How is this echoed in the second verse?

4 5 Reply
Feleshia Fuller 15 March 2011

i real like your peom because i remines me of my life kind of

3 6 Reply
Joseph Poewhit 15 March 2010

Deep poem, with a subtile message of birth calling to a higher power. From a mother with child, to mankind calling to GOD. All seem to seek the security of a higher security.

3 6 Reply
Ramesh T A 15 March 2010

In a ready posture mother sits to hear the nurslings voice, but is no more to receive the prayer! A most insightful poem to read!

2 3 Reply
Brian Jani 19 June 2014

Any person can find meaning and can relate to this poem, well penned indeed Mr Rossetti

5 1 Reply
* Sunprincess * 15 March 2014

Thus oft my soul has hearkened; till the song, A central moan for days, at length found tongue, And the sweet music welled and the sweet tears.

4 1 Reply
Like A Boss 15 March 2012

Very bad poem don't understand.

6 2 Reply
Like A Boss 15 March 2012

Sucky poem, doesn't make any since.

3 2 Reply
Carlos Echeverria 15 March 2012

DGR shares his sorrow, grief, emptiness without a touch of self-pity...but only that his heart no longer sings.

3 2 Reply
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