The One Certainty

By Christina Rossetti

Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith,

All things are vanity. The eye and ear

Cannot be filled with what they see and hear.

Like early dew, or like the sudden breath

Of wind, or like the grass that withereth,

Is man, tossed to and fro by hope and fear:

So little joy hath he, so little cheer,

Till all things end in the long dust of death.

To-day is still the same as yesterday,

To-morrow also even as one of them;

And there is nothing new under the sun:

Until the ancient race of Time be run,

The old thorns shall grow out of the old stem,

And morning shall be cold and twilight grey.

Interpretations

Zong:

In this poem, Christina Rossetti is talking about death. When the preacher says that “All things are vanity,” he’s trying to say that there’s not much that matters. Like how there is life, there is death. The line representing life is “Like early dew, or like the sudden breath Of wind, or like the grass that withereth,” the eary dew, sudden breath of wind, and withering of grass serving as a metaphor to the joy that life serves itself in. Then there’s death, “Is man, tossed to and fro by hope and fear: So little joy hath he, so little cheer, Till all things end in the long dust of death.” In the last line of the poem, where the “old thorns shall grow out of the old stem, And morning shall be cold and twilight grey,” this stanza represents a beautiful, inevitable death.

Kaying:

"They" are the believers who rely on "The One Certainty", Christ. The speaker is the Preacher and he shares that the believers become "tossed to and fro by hope and fear" because they encounter obstacles that believing what is seen and heard is not what it may seem. This certain believer, such as the speaker, hopes that true happiness will be found after "death". The speaker yearns for happiness dreading all days, "To-day is still the same as yesterday,

To-morrow also even as one of them." Religiously speaking, the thorns represent the old life of the believers who will eventually reach a happy life after death. Life's purpose is to live for the one certainty yet til' death "morning shall be cold and twilight grey.".

Chee: