Analysis of Sonnet LIX: Love's Last Gift

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828 (London) – 1882 (Birchington-on-Sea)



Love to his singer held a glistening leaf,
And said: “The rose-tree and the apple-tree
Have fruits to vaunt or flowers to lure the bee;
And golden shafts are in the feathered sheaf
Of the great harvest-marshal, the year's chief,
Victorious Summer; aye, and 'neath warm sea
Strange secret grasses lurk inviolably
Between the filtering channels of sunk reef.
“All are my blooms; and all sweet blooms of love
To thee I gave while Spring and Summer sang;
But Autumn stops to listen, with some pang
From those worse things the wind is moaning of.
Only this laurel dreads no winter days:
Take my last gift; thy heart hath sung my praise.”


Scheme ABBAABCADEEDFF
Poetic Form
Metre 11110101001 0101100101 11111101101 0101100101 1011010011 01001010111 1101011 01010010111 1111011111 1111110101 1101110111 1111011101 1011011101 1111111111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 633
Words 115
Sentences 4
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 498
Words per stanza (avg) 112
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 13, 2023

34 sec read
128

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. more…

All Dante Gabriel Rossetti poems | Dante Gabriel Rossetti Books

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