To Vittoria Colonna
Sonnet 6
To Vittoria Colonna - meaning Summary
Fame Outlives Bodily Death
The speaker mourns Vittoria Colonna’s death while celebrating her moral beauty and enduring reputation. Nature and the poet grieve her loss, but the poem insists that virtuous fame survives physical death. Death cannot silence the ‘‘rumor of thy virtuous renown’’; it instead secures her heavenly reward, making death both a limit to earthly presence and the means by which she gains refuge and a crown in the skies.
Read Complete AnalysesWhen the prime mover of my many sighs Heaven took through death from out her earthly place, Nature, that never made so fair a face, Remained ashamed, and tears were in all eyes. O fate, unheeding my impassioned cries! O hopes fallacious! O thou spirit of grace, Where art thou now? Earth holds in its embrace Thy lovely limbs, thy holy thoughts the skies. Vainly did cruel death attempt to stay The rumor of thy virtuous renown, That Lethe's waters could not wash away! A thousand leaves, since he hath stricken thee down, Speak of thee, nor to thee could Heaven convey, Except through death, a refuge and a crown.
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