Poem of the Week

Dead Love

Oh never weep for love that’s dead
Since love is seldom true
But changes his fashion from blue to red,
From brightest red to blue,
And love was born to an early death
And is so seldom true.

Then harbour no smile on your bonny face
To win the deepest sigh.
The fairest words on truest lips
Pass on and surely die,
And you will stand alone, my dear,
When wintry winds draw nigh.
Sweet, never weep for what cannot be,
For this God has not given.
If the merest dream of love were true
Then, sweet, we should be in heaven,
And this is only earth, my dear,
Where true love is not given.

Elizabeth Siddal saw none of her poems in print. They were posthumously published during the 1890s by William Michael Rossetti, who remarked, not altogether unfairly, that they were “restricted in both quantity and development”. When his sister Christina Rossetti was preparing her own collection, The Prince’s Progress, for publication in 1866 it had been proposed that some of Siddal’s poems might be included. Christina admired her sister-in-law’s work, but judged the poems to be “almost too hopelessly sad for publication en masse”. So an opportunity was missed, for Siddal’s literary reputation might surely have enjoyed an early boost from the association. The first modern edition came out in 1978, the dates and sequence of composition unknown. The text of Dead Love reproduced here comes from an online edition, where you can find all the complete poems that have survived.
More at The Guardian

The speaker is perhaps a mother, advising a listener who is perhaps her daughter, against putting her trust in “true love.” That a feminine dialogue is indicated might suggest that love is being posited as a specifically male falsehood. Love is gendered as male in the poem, and the endearments suggest a female speaker. But, notwithstanding the “bonny face” and winsome smile, it’s not impossible to imagine a male addressee.