Footnotes

1. Rossetti says in the second line of the poem that a poem is a "memorial," or in other words, a symbol of the poet's soul that will live on forever. He continues the idea of immorality in the last two lines of this stanza when he explains that throughout time, the poem will "sparkle" in people's lives. The process of writing a poem is explained in line 4 when he explains that the poet must decide whether to write a poem that cleanses the soul or one that is an ominous warning to those who read it. These are the two main ideas that Rossetti presents in the first stanza- the immorality of the poet through poetry and the process of writing the actual poem. ▲
2. This sonnet is unique in that it ends with a couplet, like a Shakespearean sonnet, but otherwise follows the structure of a Petrarchan sonnet. The couplet does not present an argument to unify the building images of preceding lines, as it would in an English sonnet; rather, it builds upon the idea of the sonnet's purpose and its ultimate fate when the poet dies. At this point, the "turn" in the sonnet has already occurred when metaphorically flips the coin to discuss the universal forces behind the sonnet. The couplet's subject matter moves the sonnet past the temporal moment which inspired it and gives another perspective to the sonnet of which the sonnet speaks by hinting at its immortality. ▲