Poems about Cousins

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Themes: Desire, Failure

Emotion: Abandonment

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Cousins

Injustice, Sexuality, Women's Rights

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Cousin Kate

by Christina Rossetti

‘Cousin Kate’ speaks to the circumstance of women during the Victorian era. The period in which Rossetti wrote this poem makes the message all the more meaningful.

Rossetti's poem is undoubtedly one of the most famous poetic renderings of the relationship between cousins ever produced. The heartbreaking betrayal by the narrator's cousin, Kate, is tempered by the fact women had so few rights in this era and thus Kate may have chosen the best of a very poor selection of options. Nevertheless, the relationship between the two cousins is severed forever and the narrator remains embittered.

I was a cottage maiden

Hardened by sun and air,

Contented with my cottage mates,

Not mindful I was fair.

On the Death of a Young Lady

Lord Byron wrote ‘On the Death of a Young Lady’ in memory of his cousin Margaret Parker. This poem contains great emotional content, focusing on atmosphere over the story.

Byron's poem was written for his cousin, Margaret Parker, who died when they were both teenagers. The sense of remorse is palpable and demonstrates how close the two cousins were. Byron's reasoning that if death had any mercy, it would have spared Margaret is typical of the manner in which people bargain as a means of coping with grief. The loss of a family member is implied to be the worst kind of loss.

Hush’d are the winds, and still the evening gloom,

Not e’en a zephyr wanders through the grove,

Whilst I return, to view my Margaret’s tomb,

And scatter flowers on the dust I love.

The Strand at Lough Beg

Heaney’s ‘The Strand at Lough Beg’ mourns his cousin’s death in the Troubles, blending nature’s calm with human violence for a hopeful close.

Heaney's poem is not only dedicated to his cousin Colum, who was killed during The Troubles, but also addressed to him. It touches upon the closeness that exists between cousins and the heartbreak of having that relationship cut short by something as tragic as human conflict. The poem is therefore one of the most moving accounts of a relationship between cousins in any poem.

Leaving the white glow of filling stations

And a few lonely streetlamps among fields

You climbed the hills toward Newtownhamilton

Past the Fews Forest, out beneath the stars–

Looking For A Cousin On A Swing

‘Looking For A Cousin On A Swing’ by A.K. Ramanujan is a strange and thoughtful poem in which the speaker describes a young girl’s desire alongside images of childhood.

The poem explores how much a person's formative years, especially their relationships with family members, can inform their desires and preferences when they become adults. In the case of this poem, the now-adult figure yearns to replicate the feelings they experienced on the swing with their cousin when they were both children.

When she was four or five

she sat on a village swing and

her cousins, six or seven,

sat himself against her;

4 Must-Read Poems about Cousins

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4 Must-Read Poems about Cousins

Cousin Kate

by Christina Rossetti

On the Death of a Young Lady

by Lord Byron

The Strand at Lough Beg

by Seamus Heaney

Looking For A Cousin On A Swing

by A. K. Ramanujan

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