He changed me like a glove;
So now I moan, an unclean thing,
Who might have been a dove.
The speaker uses two very different metaphorical comparisons to describe the possible roles she might have fit into, and in doing so critiques the harshly delineated roles available to women of her social class. Currently she is treated like a fashionable accessory. The lord physically uses her like a piece of clothing, treating her as a useful but ultimately dispensable object. Moreover, the word "unclean" insinuates that, according to the sexual norms of her society, she becomes sullied and less-valued because of this objectification. The object with which she metaphorically contrasts the glove is not an object at all but a living thing, capable of flight and therefore of agency. Doves are also symbolically resonant. They mate for life, suggesting that the speaker might have been a valued companion of the lord. They are also associated with peace, hinting that, had she married the lord, the speaker would not have allowed such intense social discord to occur.
O Lady Kate, my cousin Kate,
You grew more fair than I:
This neat quatrain demonstrates the arbitrary standards and capricious decisions that have led to the speaker's downfall. In the space of just three quick iambs, the speaker chronicles the process by which her own previously mentioned fairness becomes irrelevant. She is outstripped by her cousin in a process outside of either girl's control, and both of their lives change as a result. This strange shift from an equal relationship to an unmatched one, leaving a bizarre tension between Kate and the speaker, is summarized in the first of these two lines. The speaker addresses her cousin as both "O lady" and "my cousin," the first title distant and worshipful, the second familiar and proprietary.
Because you were so good and pure
He bound you with his ring:
The neighbors called you good and pure,
Call me an outcast thing.
Here, the speaker highlights the impossible trap she finds herself in. She was initially rejected by the lord in favor of Kate, as a result of her perceived promiscuity relative to her cousin's perceived morality and purity. However, rejection alone is not the only price she has to pay. The lord puts her in a purely sexual role, which only increases her reputation for promiscuity, causing society as a whole to turn on her. Her divergence from gender norms places her in a cycle, by which she is forced into increasingly non-normative roles, leading to harsher and harsher rejection. Furthermore, the speaker's initial sin was not any particular act of promiscuity, but only a failure to be judged as pure as her cousin. A scarcity of opportunities means that Kate's success results in disproportionate punishment for the speaker.
Even so I sit and howl in dust,
You sit in gold and sing:
Now which of us has tenderer heart?
You had the stronger wing.
Here, Rossetti makes use of the ballad form to emphasize the contrast between the two girls. Lines one and three match both in length and in end-rhyming sound. The same is true of lines two and four. Rossetti chooses to focus on Kate in lines two and four, emphasizing her happiness, comfort, and success. In lines one and three, meanwhile, the speaker receives more focus. The contrast between the speaker and Kate is heightened by the contrasts between line length and end rhyme. By interspersing lines focusing on Kate with those focusing on the speaker, Rossetti has readers pivot between the two, the sudden juxtapositions causing an awareness of the simultaneous closeness and extreme difference between the women.
My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride
The word "fair" holds a great deal of significance in this line and in the revelation of the son. The speaker is described early in the poem as being "flaxen-haired," meaning that both she and her son have blond hair. This underscores the closeness between herself and her child, establishing him as the one thing she still has some degree of ownership over. At the same time, this mark of their relatedness makes the child an even more potent reminder of the speaker's experiences of exploitation by the lord. For this reason, the child is indeed both her "shame" and her "pride," representing both her loss of control and the little control she maintains. Moreover, the word "fair" has previously cropped up to describe both Kate and the speaker. In these earlier instances, "fair" meant "beautiful" rather than "light-colored." Nevertheless, fairness was the metric by which the lord chose Kate over the speaker, and its use here subtly suggests that the son will win his father's affection.
