Rossetti: Echo.

Echo:

Narrative: Mourning a death? - a child? - a lover?
                  "soft rounded cheeks" "whose awakening should have been in paradise"

Language: Repitition in all stanzas.
                  Rhyme Scheme: ABABCC.

Not a narrative poem as such, more a poem that is telling emotions.
-A lyric poem.



Language Analysis:

STANZA 1: 

• Imperative of "come" - not commanding but more of a pleading tone. Sets the tone of desperation and longing.
• Repititon of "come" - shows speaker is persistent and again emphasises her desperation and pleads. A soothing, constant.
• Smilie (figurative language) - creates a clear image of the contrast of the "sunlight on a stream" The sunglight on a stream gives it a figurative comparison to nature - Romantic Poets influence.
• Triplet - Abstract nouns which mirror the title as they are echoes. "Memory, hope, love" - addressing her lover, represents her lover.
• Sibilance - "sound" sensual.
• Alliteration
• Oxymoron - "speaking silence"
• "Come back in tears" - ambiguity.

STANZA 2:

• Repititon of "sweet" - oxymoron of "bittersweet", growing madness, nostalgia.
• "Paradise" - capitalised, heaven?
• wants to meet in heaven- ambiguity- who is dead, if anyone?
• "Thirsting, longing eyes" - reinforces pleading tone.
• "lets out no more" - A dark undertone to being in heaven. In heaven, waiting for their lover, isnt an idyllic state. Person who is alive, calling for their dead lover.
• Water imagery - again, Romantic poets infulence on Rossetti.

STANZA 3:

• Lyrical - traditional to be set to music.
• "My very life again tho' cold in death" - wantes to relive their life, an echo of it. Literal meaning and figurative as she thinks she is "cold in death" without her lover.
• Structure/layout -reinfoces an echo on the page.
• "Pulse for pulse, breath for breath" - Speaker dies instead of lover? Closeness of loves? Rhythm is like a pulse/breath. Ambiguous.
• "As long ago, so long ago" - literally long ago- poignant or feels so long ago.
• Complex punctuation - syntax. Slows down the poem, each stanza is a sentance.

Comparisons:
1) Song is a lyric poem and refers to a period after death and a lover dying. However, it is clear it is her own death she is referrring to in Song.
2) Remember is also a lyric poem and has the same quiet, persuasive tone.
3) Shut Out addresses the concept and feelings of 'distance', both figuratively and literally, also.