Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1882)
English poet, painter and translator.
If God in his wisdom have brought close
The day when I must die,
That day by water or fire or air
My feet shall fall in the destined snare
Wherever my road may lie.
Each hour until we meet is as a bird
That wings from far his gradual way along
The rustling covert of my soul.
From the fix'd place of Heaven she saw
Time like a pulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce
Its path; and now she spoke as when
The stars sang in their spheres.
A Sonnet is a moment's monument,—
Memorial from the Soul's eternity
To one dead deathless hour.
If the light is
It is because God said 'Let there be light.'
The blessed damozel lean'd out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters still'd at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.
Gather a shell from the strewn beach
And listen at its lips: they sigh
The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea's speech.
Around her, lovers, newly met
'Mid deathless love's acclaims,
Spoke evermore among themselves
Their heart-remember'd names;
And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.
Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are.
From perfect grief there need not be
Wisdom or even memory;
One thing then learned remains to me —
The woodspurge has a cup of three.