To Vittoria Colonna 2
Sonnet 5.
To Vittoria Colonna 2 - form Summary
A Sonnet's Enduring Claim
Longfellow's sonnet contemplates art's power to outlast its creator. The speaker observes that a crafted image can endure longer than its maker and admits that Time betrays even his skill. He proposes to fix both his beloved and himself in art—color or stone—so that distant future viewers will know her beauty, his sorrow, and the reason for his love. The poem links permanence, memory, and artistic ambition.
Read Complete AnalysesLady, how can it chance--yet this we see In long experience--that will longer last A living image carved from quarries vast Than its own maker, who dies presently? Cause yieldeth to effect if this so be, And even Nature is by Art at surpassed; This know I, who to Art have given the past, But see that Time is breaking faith with me. Perhaps on both of us long life can I Either in color or in stone bestow, By now portraying each in look and mien; So that a thousand years after we die, How fair thou wast, and I how full of woe, And wherefore I so loved thee, may be seen.
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