A wonderful poem written by a young man of nineteen Rossetti , The Blessed Damozel breathes all the

freshness , warmth and passion of youth . The poem is full of fine subtle touches the freshness and
spaciousness are lacking in some of his more ornate later poems.

Inspired by Edger Allan Poe’s The Raven, it is a love poem dealing with longing of the beloved for her
lover. Read More Poetry The blessed damsel who is in haven longs passionately for her lover who is still
on the earth. Her intense longing is felt by the lover on earthy life who also yearns for her. She has been
in heaven for ten years. Passing like a day, all these ten years in heaven she is gazing from the heavenly
height trying to see her lover on earth. Read More Poetry But to her lover on earth they had seen like
ages. She thinks of his coming to heaven and what she will do when he comes. She will take him to the
deep wells of light, bathe with him in the heavenly streams and visit the occult forbidden shrine. She will
take him to Lady Mary and declare their love and get her approval ken they will be taken by Mary to
God. There she will ask Lord Christ to reunite them as lovers in heaven for ever. But all this she will do
when he comes. She waits hopefully, a little wistfully for, and sobs in the end. The lover on the earth
hears her tears, and sees her smile. Despair, in Rossetti's vision, is also to be found in heaven despair and
longing for earthly bliss, for human love.

Read More Poetry Rossetti deals with the love of the blessed damsel the heavenly spirit, as if she were
still an earthly creatures with all the warmth and intensity of love found in a young girl . Read More
Poetry In spite of calm deep eyes and angelic voice this lovely damsel longs so passionately for her lover
that her bosom makes the gold bars of heaven's rampart warm. Her sobs and tears are so touching as to
melt the heart of all lovers. There is peculiar mixture of the human and angelic in the poem. Just as there
in strange alteration between heaven and earth one may trace in the poem the obvious influence of
Dante's Divine Comedy. It combines physical love with the spiritual.

Rossetti is a painter first and poet next. His picture appeared first and poems afterwards. Like Keats he is
pictorial poet. His out look on the world is essentially that of a painter. Read More Poetry He thinks and
feels in pigments. Only a painter could have give us lines like these;
 " The Blessed damozel leaned out

From the gold bar of heaven

She had three lilies in her hand

And stars in her hair were seven

And souts mounting up to God

Went by like this flames ".

Read More Poetry Another delicate exquisite device is the interacting at intervals, in language of
perfect simplicity and yet without archaism of the main poem , the thoughts of the distant lover still
enchanted by earth ,e.g.

"Oh! Sweet Even now in that birds song

Strove not her accents there ".

The Blessed Damozel is one of the most fascinating poems written by Rossetti . It combines the vastness
with the nearness which lends if an incomparable charm, says sir A.C Benson and adds : " In contrast to
the death and distance of the picture comes the thought of the nearness and closeness of the lie of
human love, that passes through the dizzy spaces like an electric thrill, and hold the faithful hearts close
together even through orestands in the tranquil and serene fortress of heaven and the other spins , a
fevered and mortal atom, in the poor fretful world . There is a genial faith in the far off union, the
passionate heart forecasting the perfect happiness of the meeting. Read More Poetry For he will come -
she says. This beautiful poem is a supreme instance of the charming of the ancient form with the most
passionate dreams of Today.”

The manner in which Rossetti turns to heaven and to a spiritual after life would convey the idea that his
is religious poetry. In fact, the title of his poem The Blessed Damozel brings to mind the Virgin Mary. But
Rossetti's intention was never to write for religious purposes. On the contrary, whereas religious believes
in shedding of all earthly bonds following a union with God, the idea Rossetti presents in The Blessed
Damozel is that earthy love survives in heaven. There is also a lot that the religious minded would object
to in his portrayal of the disconsolate woman's indifference to all heavenly delights in her disconsolate
grief stricken state.

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Summary of "The Blessed Damozel"

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was only 18 when he wrote "The Blessed Damozel." Although Rossetti was still
young, the images and themes in his poem have caught the attention of many critics throughout the
years. "The Blessed Damozel" is a beautiful story of how two lovers are separated by the death of the
Damozel and how she wishes to enter paradise, but only if she can do so in the company of her beloved.

"The Blessed Damozel" is one of Rossetti's most famous poems and has been dissected and explicated
many times by many different people. Even so, they all revolve around the same ideas and themes. The
theme of Rossetti's poem is said to have been taken from Vita Nuova, separated lovers are to be rejoined
in heaven, by Dante. Many people say his young vision of idealized love was very picturesque and that
the heavens Rossetti so often painted and those which were in his poems were much like Dante. The
heaven that Rossetti painted in "The Blessed Damozel" was warm with physical bodies and beautiful
angels full of love. This kind of description of heaven was said to have been taken from Dante's ideas.
Others said that Rossetti's heaven was described so in "The Blessed Damozel" because he was still young
and immature about such matters. In other words, he had not yet seen the ugliness and despair that
love can bring, which he experienced later in his life after the death of his true love Elizabeth Siddal.

"The Blessed Damozel" is beautiful in that if flows so easily from one line to the next and it seems,
although it is not very apparent, that Rossetti filled it with symbolism and references to his own personal
feelings and future life. The first few stanzas tell of how the Damozel is in heaven overlooking earth and
thinking of her lover. Rossetti writes in stanza three of how time to the Damozel seemed to last forever
because she was without her love. "To one it is ten years of years..." There are a few stanzas in the poem
where the narrative jumps to her lover. In stanza four, it is the lover on earth talking about his beloved.
The next few stanzas describe heaven, where it lies, and other lovers reuniting around her as she sits and
watches...alone. In stanzas ten and eleven, her earthbound lover describes the sound of her voice like a
bird's song which tells the reader that not only is he thinking of her, but it hints he can hear her and feel
her about him. Of course, she can not understand why she must be miserable in heaven when all others
are with their loves, after all, "Are not two prayers a perfect strength?" (stanza 12). In stanza thirteen,
she dreams of the day that they will be together and present themselves in the beauty and glory of God.
It is also in this stanza that Rossetti lets the reader know that she has not yet entered heaven. She is at
the outer gates of the kingdom of heaven.
Through the second half of the poem, the Damozel refers to herself and her lover as "we two" and
describes how they will be together again someday in heaven. The Damozel even says she will teach him
the songs that she sings...and she dreams of them together. It is in the next stanza, (stanza 17), that the
narrative changes again back to the lover. He says that she keeps on saying "we two" but when and will
they ever really be together like they used to be. Rossetti is using the Damozel in these few stanzas to
describe how the Damozel would want her ideal and perfect love to be, but could that really be with her
in heaven and him on earth? The two worlds separating them doesn't keep them apart in thought, but it
is not possible to be together. In stanza twenty-two, she once again says that she will want their love to
be as it was on earth with the approval of Christ the Lord.

Near the end of the poem, in the last couple of stanzas, the Damozel finally realizes that she can have
none of this until the time comes. The Damozel suddenly becomes peaceful and lets the light take her in
stanza twenty-three. It is there that the reader also realizes that she will enter heaven without her love.
Her lover on earth, of course, knows this and it is there in the last stanza that "I saw her smile...I hear her
tears." Apart, but together in hearts, the two are separated by two worlds so great that there is nothing
that can be done but hope and pray. And that is why the Damozel "laid her face between her hands, And
wept."

Dante Gabriel Rossetti used the ideas of Christian belief in order to write his poem. His poem explores if
two lovers, or anyone will be reunited once again in heaven. In many ways this poem is both optimistic
and idealistic. That is why so many people said Rossetti was immature on the subject of love when he
wrote this. To read Rossetti's poetry starting with some of his earliest, "The Blessed Damozel", and
ending with his later, "The Orchard Pit", it is apparent how his feelings and ideas changed. As many times
as "The Blessed Damozel" has been read and explicated, it is no wonder it has been said that so many
ideas lie in his famous piece, but who doesn't want to believe, like Rossetti did in his younger years that
love, no matter what, would always live in the spirit of soul and memory.

***

The Blessed Damozel Summary

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful of their
contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by Lina Christoph

The poem is about a young woman who has died and is now waiting and yearning for her beloved to join
her in heaven.

The first stanza sets the scene and describes a young woman (a damsel) leaning over the fence of
heaven, looking down.

In the second stanza, the woman’s appearance is described as wearing simple clothing and her blonde
her open.

The third stanza establishes that the woman has been dead for ten years, even though for her it has felt
as one single day in heaven.

The fourth stanza introduces the first-person narrator whose speech is always set in brackets. He
remembers the woman and feels watched by her.

Stanzas five and six describe the place the woman is staying in, the house of God in heaven, which lies
far above the sun.

In stanzas seven to ten the woman is still standing on her spot, waiting and watching as the loved ones of
countless other dead people join them in heaven, while she stays put, leaning over the fence, until she
finally begins to speak.

In stanza eleven the narrator is speaking again, implying that the woman is waiting for him. Stanzas
twelve to sixteen is the direct speech of the woman, lamenting the long wait. She is addressing God
directly, asking if they have prayed enough for her beloved to join her in heaven and describes how she
will help him settle in and learn the ways of heaven.

In stanza seventeen the narrator is speaking again, this time confirming that the woman is speaking
about him and that he is her beloved.
In stanzas eighteen to twenty-two the woman is speaking again, saying how she will seek out the
blessing of Mary for her beloved. She describes Mary and her maids and is confident that Mary will give
her approval and bring her before Christ where the woman can ask to be reunited with the narrator.

The last two stanzas describe the woman standing again at her spot, waiting and hoping for the day they
will be reunited. While she is hopeful at first, it soon becomes apparent that their reunion is unlikely and
the poem closes with the narrator stating that he can hear the woman’s tears.

***

Love

Love is an important theme in many poems and works of literature, as well as in "The Blessed Damozel".
However, the situation the damozel is in is pretty complicated, since her love will not die, but it may not
be fulfilled. Love is an important theme because the author is trying to show that you probably won't get
everything that you want, even if you really want it. The Blessed Damozel may be lucky in some other
ways, but when it comes to love, all she really has is hope.

Hope

Relating to love, hope is another important theme in "The Blessed Damozel". She has someone that she
loves, yes, but she does not know if she will ever be able to share that love. All she can do now is hope
that she can. Trying harder may make a better result, but the hope building up inside her will free fall if
she doesn't get what she truly wanted.

Religion

Religion would not have anything to do with the situation if the setting wasn't Heaven, but it is. The love
that the damozel feels needs to be fulfilled romantically as well as religiously, since she can only get what
she wants if she listens to the God that brought her to Heaven. Since the two were not married during
their mortal life, they will need to get approval from the higher powers in the poem, making for an
interesting religious scenario.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poem "The Blessed Damozel" is a devout exploration of the ideas of love in
heaven. The narrator describes the plight of a young woman who is dead as she awaits her beloved in
heaven, praying for him to come to her soon. The girl seeks advocacy from Mary the mother of Christ,
but to no avail. Rossetti concludes the poem with melancholy as the girl soon realizes that she will never
reunite with her beloved.

The concept of heaven presented in the Bible is remarkably abstract. A great deal of debate surrounds
the details of the mysterious paradise in the life after death. In this poem, Rossetti examines a few
common beliefs and or misconceptions about the place. First of all, he sets the text in a physical location
where the young woman experiences time the same way as the living experience it. She has been dead
for ten years. During this time, she has been prayerfully awaiting the arrival of her beloved in heaven.
According to the Christians, there is no marriage in heaven. The idea is that all beings will be united
there with a bond infinitely more intimate than marriage so that there would be no need for the
institution to exist there.

After waiting for ten years, this maid is still longing for her former lover. She is consumed with grief at
not being with him. When the Virgin Mary is unable to help her, she despairs of ever seeing him again. In
Heaven, the place where there will be no tears, she is more miserable than she probably ever was on
Earth. Because of the tragic conclusion, Rossetti is most likely playing a trick on readers by placing the girl
in Hell instead of Heaven. This is why she cannot reunite with her beloved. She is destined to be eternally
tormented.

***

“(To one, it is ten years of years.

…Yet now, and in this place,

Surely she lean’d o’er me—her hair

Fell all about my face…”

Speaker, stanza 4, line 19-22

In these lines, the first-person-narrator reveals himself for the first time (his comments are always in
brackets). In the stanza prior to this one it was simply hinted that the damozel left loved ones behind
grieving for her when she died. Here, however, the speaker emphasizes that no one misses her as much
as he does, even after ten years. This portrays just how deeply the love between the two was as the
speaker’s feelings for her have not changed or diminished in ten years.

The fact that the speaker can feel her to the point of where he imagines the sensation of her hair on his
skin also portrays just how deeply involved the damozel still is in her lover’s life. And in fact she is
standing on a balcony in Heaven, watching over and observing her lover, as well as trying her hardest to
secure his access to Heaven.

“And the souls mounting up to God

Went by her like thin flames.”

Speaker, stanza 7, line 41-42

In this quote, the speaker describes the situation of his beloved in Heaven. She is standing on a balcony
in Heaven, watching down and desperately waiting for her lover to join her. All around her, others are
welcoming their loved ones, while she stays alone. Even though the titular damozel is said to be
“blessed” (l. 1) this does not seem to extend to her loved ones. In this quote, the speaker vividly portrays
how the situation must feel like for her. The deceased that God calls into Heaven are “mounting up” (l.
41), implying a great number. This means that generally accessing Heaven is not as difficult as it seems to
be for the speaker, which in turn might imply that there is something actively speaking against him
joining his beloved.

Additionally, the fact that watching all those people reunite feels like fire to her further shows her pain
during the long wait. Fire is generally something that hurts if touched and every soul that is allowed
entrance into Heaven (that isn’t her lover) feels like being burned to her, who wishes for nothing else
than to be reunited as well.

“Have I not pray’d in Heaven? – on earth,

Lord, Lord, has he not pray’d?

Are not two prayers a perfect strength?”

Damozel, stanza 12, lines 69-71

In this quote, the damozel just started speaking for the first time in the poem and she immediately
addresses God, demanding an answer as to why her lover has not joined her in Heaven yet. It
distinctively shows her determination as she very directly argues why he should have. While her faith is
thoroughly portrayed throughout the poem, in this quote is the only instance in which the speaker is said
to be of faith as well (even though the situation in the poem implies the contrary), praying just as
fervently as she is.

The last line of the quote also implies something about the nature of their relationship. It appears
unlikely that they have been married before her death (as she is still called a damozel and there are no
references to any legal marriage, only love), and the fact that she assumes that there will only be two
prayers spoken for the couple (one by each) implies that their families and surroundings did not approve
of the relationship or that it was a secret.