Christina Rossetti, I wish I could remember (1881)

Text

2.

"Era già l'ora che volge il desio."--Dante.

"Ricorro al tempo ch' io vi vidi prima."--Petrarca.

I wish I could remember that first day,

First hour, first moment of your meeting me,

If bright or dim the season, it might be

Summer or Winter for aught I can say;

So unrecorded did it slip away,

So blind was I to see and to foresee,

So dull to mark the budding of my tree

That would not blossom yet for many a May.

If only I could recollect it, such

A day of days! I let it come and go

As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;

It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;

If only now I could recall that touch,

First touch of hand in hand--Did one but know!

First Edition

Christina Rossetti. A Pageant and Other Poems. 1881.

Critical Edition

Christina Rossetti. "Monna Innominata, Sonnet 2 [1881]." Complete Poems. A Variorum Edition. Vol. 2. Ed. R.W. Crump. Baton Rouge, London: Louisiana State University Press, 1986. 86 f.