Victorian poet Christina Rossetti's "Piteous my rhyme is" offers two contrasting perspectives on love. The first stanza suggests that love is fleeting and only ends in disappointment, agony, and futility. Love, in this negative view, isn't worth much. The second stanza, by contrast, suggests that love is everything. It presents love's ability to endure through pain as part of its beauty and suggests that an eternal, transcendent, and selfless love lasts beyond death. Rossetti published this poem in Time Flies: A Reading Diary, her 1885 collection of Christian devotional prose and poetry. Readers might interpret the poem as being spoken by two arguing voices or by one deeply conflicted speaker.
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The Full Text of “Piteous my rhyme is”
1Piteous my rhyme is
2What while I muse of love and pain,
3Of love misspent, of love in vain,
4Of love that is not loved again:
5And is this all then?
6As long as time is,
7Love loveth. Time is but a span,
8The dalliance space of dying man:
9And is this all immortals can?
10The gain were small then.
11Love loves for ever,
12And finds a sort of joy in pain,
13And gives with nought to take again,
14And loves too well to end in vain:
15Is the gain small then?
16Love laughs at "never,"
17Outlives our life, exceeds the span
18Appointed to mere mortal man:
19All which love is and does and can
20Is all in all then.
The Full Text of “Piteous my rhyme is”
1Piteous my rhyme is
2What while I muse of love and pain,
3Of love misspent, of love in vain,
4Of love that is not loved again:
5And is this all then?
6As long as time is,
7Love loveth. Time is but a span,
8The dalliance space of dying man:
9And is this all immortals can?
10The gain were small then.
11Love loves for ever,
12And finds a sort of joy in pain,
13And gives with nought to take again,
14And loves too well to end in vain:
15Is the gain small then?
16Love laughs at "never,"
17Outlives our life, exceeds the span
18Appointed to mere mortal man:
19All which love is and does and can
20Is all in all then.
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“Piteous my rhyme is” Summary
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“Piteous my rhyme is” Themes
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Cynicism vs. Faith in Love
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Human Love vs. Divine Love
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Piteous my rhyme is”
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Lines 1-5
Piteous my rhyme is
What while I muse of love and pain,
Of love misspent, of love in vain,
Of love that is not loved again:
And is this all then? -
Lines 6-10
As long as time is,
Love loveth. Time is but a span,
The dalliance space of dying man:
And is this all immortals can?
The gain were small then. -
Lines 11-15
Love loves for ever,
And finds a sort of joy in pain,
And gives with nought to take again,
And loves too well to end in vain:
Is the gain small then? -
Lines 16-20
Love laughs at "never,"
Outlives our life, exceeds the span
Appointed to mere mortal man:
All which love is and does and can
Is all in all then.
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“Piteous my rhyme is” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Repetition
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Parallelism
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Diacope
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Personification
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Juxtaposition
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Alliteration
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Rhetorical Question
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“Piteous my rhyme is” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Piteous
- Muse
- Misspent
- In vain
- Love that is not loved again
- Loveth
- Span
- Dalliance space
- The gain were small then
- Nought
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Piteous my rhyme is”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“Piteous my rhyme is” Speaker
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“Piteous my rhyme is” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “Piteous my rhyme is”
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More “Piteous my rhyme is” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poem in Context — Take a look at "Time Flies," Rossetti's collection of daily devotional reflections, to see how this poem fits into Rossetti's wider religious project in the book.
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Rossetti's Religion — Read an article describing how Christina Rossetti's Anglo-Catholicism inspired her poetry.
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More on Rossetti — Visit the Victorian Web to find a wealth of information on Rossetti.
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A Biography of Rossetti — Read the Poetry Foundation's short biography to learn more about Rossetti's life.
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Portraits of Rossetti — See some images of Rossetti via London's National Portrait Gallery.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Christina Rossetti
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