Poetry is the art of forgotten years and faded memories, we keep the poetry alive because we do not wish to let the untold stories of ours or perhaps others to vanish. Human beings live with a love towards poetry since it reminds them that they are a whole even in their smallest fragments. We give meaning to poetry in any kind of way because we are members of the human kind, and we always have an urge to express our passion using the art of the words. One of these people who prefer to use a language filled with passion is Christina Georgina Rossetti. One of her poems which made me feel like a whole is named as “Echo”, this poem similar to a letter written by a broken hearted soul only longing for her beloved one to arrive: Perchance the matter which makes this poem sincerely fascinating is the fact that her lover will never arrive, however will always be present in her dreams. The following lines are the first verse of Rossetti’s tragically fascinating poem, Echo.
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
The name of this poem represents Christina’s times of despair when she can’t seem to help but wish for her fallen beloved’s memories to rebound to her like an echo. She characterizes the agony of lost love as unlike any other pain, in which she can’t resist but falls to the threads of lost faith that attach to her. She desires that this echo will be a companion in her dreams in the middle of the night and brings all the memories that she is longing for that she bursts into tears. After all, she chose to believe that her lover will arrive in her dreams or perchance in person after all of the gone years.
This poem portrays the sorrow of a lost love, and the remaining memories that enlighten all over her dreams, similar to sunlight on a stream. She is clinging to every single piece of her hope for the sake of every precious memory and all the astonishment in her lover’s eyes, even though years gradually corrode her faith. She wishes to exist in her dreams, where only her beloved may exist; thus, even if the nights are deafeningly silent, there will be a noise in her reality that is only made of him and her.