Christina Rossetti and John Keats were both poets in their prime. Rossetti wrote the rather controversial poem, Cousin Kate (1879) and John Keats wrote the poem with the French name, La Belle Dame sans Merci, (1819) meaning "the beautiful woman without mercy". Both poems explore the injustices of love and power and also the consequences of what happens with a potentially bad decision. Not only that, they both address these themes with a particular balance between the two; both have similarities, but both contrast in many different ways. Each poem shares similarities that reflect the poets' lives before they became literary sensations. Christina Rossetti, who came from an artistic and incredibly religious background, was a devout Anglo-Catholic and spent a lot of time and energy as a member of the Church of England. His work consistently conveys his deep religious sensitivity and pervades most of his poems. However, this did not translate into a preaching and moralizing front; on the contrary, he did everything he could to help the disadvantaged women of that society: the prostitutes. The details of Rossetti's life were in stark contrast to how Victorian women were "supposed" to behave in those days. Women were not to be precocious or adulterated, however, Rossetti and his beliefs challenged the traditional Victorian "dream", thus resulting in his involvement with prostitutes in the "charity house" of St. Mary Magdalene in Highgate. Rossetti's religious beliefs were so strong that they led to her heartbreak when she rejected two marriage proposals; Charles Cayley's marriage proposal struck her fiercely, as her love for him was profound and would leave a lasting impact on her life and work. S...... middle of paper ... would give up anything to have an heir to his fortune, and even a child adds to the novelty. Despite this, and in a very contradictory way, the girl uses her son as a tool, just as he was, to show how well he is doing. I would argue that this is not the intended epitome of Victorian traditions, however it seems to have worked in favor of their maiden in Cousin Kate. The poem ends on a less happy tone than it began with; the emphasis is now on the positive situation of the narrator and the negative situation of Kate and the Lord, however, even though this is the case, there are some words within the poem, to describe the narrator, which are sad, and show his desperation, he wants and even needs a better life, especially now that he has his illegitimate child. such as 'shameful' and 'shameless', 'impure' and 'howling' make this point effectively.