References to nature and the earth in Properzia Rossi

In Properzia Rossi, Hemans, like many Romantic poets, places great stock on nature and uses many comparisons to it. The poem’s protagonist, Properzia, knows her death is imminent. She longs for her soul to be left both as a part of nature (line 14) and in the work that she will leave behind for the man she loved even though her soul could have gained the heights of heaven if she wanted.

Hemens implies that her protagonist’s artistic talents were given to her by God in lines 78 and 79 (I might have kindled, with the fire of heaven, / Things not of such as die!). Later, (line 123) she seems to contend that Earth turns artistic talents into something greater (Earth’s gift is fame.). Properzia feels that this earthly fame is useless if it cannot win the heart of the man she loves. She speaks of her “power” as a “fruitless dower / That could not win me love” (lines 38 and 39). The use of the word “fruitless” seems to make literal sense here- if she had married this man, they probably would have had children. Instead, like a tree that doesn’t bear fruit, she is able to grow faster and stronger and be more independent than a woman with a husband and children. It seems that here Hemens could be hinting that Properzia’s life has been so much more than it would have been if she’d been married.

But later in the poem (lines 95 and 96), Hemens compares watering a flower to giving a woman love and affection, as if this would enable her to grow. Properzia is dying because of a lack of love, just as a flower would die from lack of water. Furthermore, she compares her dreams and passions with fire consuming her (lines 113 and 114 and 134), the opposite of cooling water. It seems like Hemans wants the reader to read into the nature metaphors embedded in this poem and to find both the water of love that Properzia lacks and the fire of passion and of talent that she let consume her.