poem

No, Thank You John — Jul 17, 2026

Christina Rossetti

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I never said I loved you, John:
Why will you tease me day by day,
And wax a weariness to think upon
With always "do" and "pray"?

You Know I never loved you, John;
No fault of mine made me your toast:
Why will you haunt me with a face as wan
As shows an hour-old ghost?

I dare say Meg or Moll would take
Pity upon you, if you'd ask:
And pray don't remain single for my sake
Who can't perform the task.

I have no heart?-Perhaps I have not;
But then you're mad to take offence
That don't give you what I have not got:
Use your common sense.

Let bygones be bygones:
Don't call me false, who owed not to be true:
I'd rather answer "No" to fifty Johns
Than answer "Yes" to you.

Let's mar our plesant days no more,
Song-birds of passage, days of youth:
Catch at today, forget the days before:
I'll wink at your untruth.

Let us strike hands as hearty friends;
No more, no less; and friendship's good:
Only don't keep in veiw ulterior ends, And points not understood

In open treaty. Rise above
Quibbles and shuffling off and on:
Here's friendship for you if you like; but love,-
No, thank you, John.

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📖 About this poem

Christina Rossetti wrote plenty of poems about longing, but this one is about refusing it, and the refusal is the whole pleasure. A woman is tired of a suitor's pestering and says so, plainly, wittily, without an ounce of guilt. The music comes from that conversational directness — short, clipped lines that sound like actual speech, rhymes that land like a hand set firmly on a table. Two images do a lot of work: John's face "wan as shows an hour-old ghost," which turns his lovesick moping into something almost comic, and the closing offer of a handshake instead of a heart, friendship held out plainly with no hidden strings. What keeps it fresh is the voice itself — a woman setting a boundary with humor instead of apology, choosing honesty over performing feelings she doesn't have. That directness still feels bracing, even modern, nearly two centuries on.

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