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Today, on November 21st, 2009, the site contains 196 poets, 8,692 poems and 7,650 comments.
Christina Rossetti - Promises Like Pie-Crust

Promise me no promises,
So will I not promise you:
Keep we both our liberties,
Never false and never true:
Let us hold the die uncast,
Free to come as free to go:
For I cannot know your past,
And of mine what can you know?

You, so warm, may once have been
Warmer towards another one:
I, so cold, may once have seen
Sunlight, once have felt the sun:
Who shall show us if it was
Thus indeed in time of old?
Fades the image from the glass,
And the fortune is not told.

If you promised, you might grieve
For lost liberty again:
If I promised, I believe
I should fret to break the chain.
Let us be the friends we were,
Nothing more but nothing less:
Many thrive on frugal fare
Who would perish of excess. 

Added: on September 22nd, 2005 at 10:08 PM | Viewed: 2865 times | Comments (2)


Promises Like Pie-Crust - Comments and Information

Poet: Christina Rossetti
Poem: Promises Like Pie-Crust

Comment 2 of 2, added on April 24th, 2006 at 6:10 PM.

The speaker in the poem has become bitter from the experience of love and does not wish to have a relationship with her friend - who has a similar history. The resolution is that another person needs to remind them what it is to be warm again before that way of life fades and they forget. They resolve to be friends because they know that they cannot grow and learn from one another simply because they are not right for eachother.

Marisa from United States
Comment 1 of 2, added on September 22nd, 2005 at 10:08 PM.

Christina seems to be mocking, gently reprimanding those lovers who take extreme caution in making promises - lest they tie them down. How lonely are those who, satisfied in their freedom, never take a chance on making a promise. Friendships that could have been more, but never became...

Parul from United States

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