Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger-tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rare harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
This is odd and ambiguous. Does it imply that the woman achieved love, but lost it, hence the “famine”? The word “after” could be interpreted as “sought after”, so the line would mean that she was starved of love, having looked for it and failed to find it. Rossetti leaves this unclear.
A Triad