Complete Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart.

  SOUL-LIGHT

  What other woman could be loved like you,

  Or how of you should love possess his fill?

  After the fulness of all rapture, still, —

  As at the end of some deep avenue

  A tender glamour of day, — there comes to view

  Far in your eyes a yet more hungering thrill, —

  Such fire as Love’s soul-winnowing hands distil

  Even from his inmost arc of light and dew.

  And as the traveller triumphs with the sun,

  Glorying in heat’s mid-height, yet startide brings

  Wonder new-born, and still fresh transport springs

  From limpid lambent hours of day begun; —

  Even so, through eyes and voice, your soul doth move

  My soul with changeful light of infinite love.

  THE MOONSTAR

  Lady, I thank thee for thy loveliness,

  Because my lady is more lovely still.

  Glorying I gaze, and yield with glad goodwill

  To thee thy tribute; by whose sweet-spun dress

  Of delicate life Love labours to assess

  My Lady’s absolute queendom; saying, ‘Lo!

  How high this beauty is, which yet doth show

  But as that beauty’s sovereign votaress.’

  Lady, I saw thee with her, side by side;

  And as, when night’s fair fires their queen surround,

  An emulous star too near the moon will ride, —

  Even so thy rays within her luminous bound

  Were traced no more; and by the light so drown’d,

  Lady, not thou but she was glorified.

  LAST FIRE

  Love, through your spirit and mine what summer eve

  Now glows with glory of all things possess’d,

  Since this day’s sun of rapture filled the west

  And the light sweetened as the fire took leave?

  Awhile now softlier let your bosom heave,

  As in Love’s harbour, even that loving breast,

  All care takes refuge while we sink to rest,

  And mutual dreams the bygone bliss retrieve.

  Many the days that Winter keeps in store,

  Sunless throughout, or whose brief sun-glimpses

  Scarce shed the heaped snow through the naked trees.

  This day at least was Summer’s paramour,

  Sun-coloured to the imperishable core

  With sweet well-being of love and full heart’s ease.

  HER GIFTS

  High grace, the dower of queens; and therewithal

  Some wood-born wonder’s sweet simplicity;

  A glance like water brimming with the sky

  Or hyacinth-light where forest-shadows fall;

  Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthral

  The heart; a mouth whose passionate forms imply

  All music and all silence held thereby;

  Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal;

  A round reared neck, meet column of Love’s shrine

  To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary;

  Hands which for ever at Love’s bidding be,

  And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign: —

  These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o’er.

  Breathe low her name, my soul; for that means more.

  EQUAL TROTH

  Not by one measure mayst thou mete our love;

  For how should I be loved as I love thee? —

  I, graceless, joyless, lacking absolutely

  All gifts that with thy queenship best behove; —

  Thou, throned in every heart’s elect alcove,

  And crowned with garlands culled from every tree,

  Which for no head but thine, by Love’s decree,

  All beauties and all mysteries interwove.

  But here thine eyes and lips yield soft rebuke: —

  ’Then only,’ (say’st thou), ‘could I love thee less,

  When thou couldst doubt my love’s equality.’

  Peace, sweet! If not to sum but worth we look,

  Thy heart’s transcendence, not my heart’s excess,

  Then more a thousandfold thou lov’st than I.

  VENUS VICTRIX

  Could Juno’s self more sovereign presence wear

  Than thou, ‘mid other ladies throned in grace? —

  Or Pallas, when thou bend’st with soul-stilled face

  O’er poet’s page gold-shadowed in thy hair?

  Dost thou than Venus seem less heavenly fair

  When o’er the sea of love’s tumultuous trance

  Hovers thy smile, and mingles with thy glance

  That sweet voice like the last wave murmuring there?

  Before such triune loveliness divine

  Awestruck I ask, which goddess here most claims

  The prize that, howsoe’er adjudged, is thine?

  Then Love breathes low the sweetest of thy names;

  And Venus Victrix to my heart doth bring

  Herself, the Helen of her guerdoning.

  THE DARK GLASS

  Not I myself know all my love for thee:

  How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh

  To-morrow’s dower by gage of yesterday?

  Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be

  As doors and windows bared to some loud sea,

  Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray;

  And shall my sense pierce love, — the last relay

  And ultimate outpost of eternity?

  Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all?

  One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand, —

  One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand.

  Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call

  And veriest touch of powers primordial

  That any hour-girt life may understand.

  THE LAMP’S SHRINE

  Sometimes I fain would find in thee some fault,

  That I might love thee still in spite of it:

  Yet how should our Lord Love curtail one whit

  Thy perfect praise whom most he would exalt?

  Alas! he can but make my heart’s low vault

  Even in men’s sight unworthier, being lit

  By thee, who thereby show’st more exquisite

  Like fiery chrysoprase in deep basalt.

  Yet will I nowise shrink; but at Love’s shrine

  Myself within the beams his brow doth dart

  Will set the flashing jewel of thy heart

  In that dull chamber where it deigns to shine:

  For lo! in honour of thine excellencies

  My heart takes pride to show how poor it is.

  LIFE-IN-LOVE

  Not in thy body is thy life at all

  But in this lady’s lips and hands and eyes;

  Through these she yields the life that vivifies

  What else were sorrow’s servant and death’s thrall.

  Look on thyself without her, and recall

  The waste remembrance and forlorn surmise

  That lived but in a dead-drawn breath of sighs

  O’er vanished hours and hours eventual.

  Even so much life hath the poor tress of hair

  Which, stored apart, is all love hath to show

  For heart-beats and for fire-heats long ago;

  Even so much life endures unknown, even where,

  ’Mid change the changeless night environeth,

  Lies all that golden hair undimmed in death.

  THE LOVE-MOON

  ’When that dead face, bowered in the furthest years,

  Which once was all the life years held for thee,

  Can now scarce bide the tides of memory

  Cast on thy soul a little spray of tears, —

  How canst thou gaze into these eyes of hers

  Whom now thy heart delights in, and not see

&nb
sp; Within each orb Love’s philtred euphrasy

  Make them of buried troth remembrancers?’

  ’Nay, pitiful Love, nay, loving Pity! Well

  Thou knowest that in these twain I have confess’d

  Two very voices of thy summoning bell.

  Nay, Master, shall not Death make manifest

  In these the culminant changes which approve

  The love-moon that must light my soul to Love?’

  THE MORROW’S MESSAGE

  ’Thou Ghost,’ I said, ‘and is thy name To-day? —

  Yesterday’s son, with such an abject brow! —

  And can To-morrow be more pale than thou?’

  While yet I spoke, the silence answered: ‘Yea,

  Henceforth our issue is all grieved and grey,

  And each beforehand makes such poor avow

  As of old leaves beneath the budding bough

  Or night-drift that the sundawn shreds away.’

  Then cried I: ‘Mother of many malisons,

  O Earth, receive me to thy dusty bed!’

  But therewithal the tremulous silence said:

  ’Lo! Love yet bids thy lady greet thee once: —

  Yea, twice, — whereby thy life is still the sun’s;

  And thrice, — whereby the shadow of death is dead.’

  SLEEPLESS DREAMS

  Girt in dark growths, yet glimmering with one star,

  O night desirous as the nights of youth!

  Why should my heart within thy spell, forsooth,

  Now beat, as the bride’s finger-pulses are

  Quickened within the girdling golden bar?

  What wings are these that fan my pillow smooth?

  And why does Sleep, waved back by Joy and Ruth,

  Tread softly round and gaze at me from far?

  Nay, night deep-leaved! And would Love feign in thee

  Some shadowy palpitating grove that bears

  Rest for man’s eyes and music for his ears?

  O lonely night! art thou not known to me,

  A thicket hung with masks of mockery

  And watered with the wasteful warmth of tears?

  SEVERED SELVES

  Two separate divided silences,

  Which, brought together, would find loving voice;

  Two glances which together would rejoice

  In love, now lost like stars beyond dark trees;

  Two hands apart whose touch alone gives ease;

  Two bosoms which, heart-shrined with mutual flame,

  Would, meeting in one clasp, be made the same;

  Two souls, the shores wave-mocked of sundering seas: —

  Such are we now. Ah! may our hope forecast

  Indeed one hour again, when on this stream

  Of darkened love once more the light shall gleam?

  An hour how slow to come, how quickly past,

  Which blooms and fades, and only leaves at last,

  Faint as shed flowers, the attenuated dream.

  THROUGH DEATH TO LOVE

  Like labour-laden moonclouds faint to flee

  From winds that sweep the winter-bitten wold, —

  Like multiform circumfluence manifold

  Of night’s flood-tide, — like terrors that agree

  Of hoarse-tongued fire and inarticulate sea, —

  Even such, within some glass dimmed by our breath,

  Our hearts discern wild images of Death,

  Shadows and shoals that edge eternity.

  Howbeit athwart Death’s imminent shade doth soar

  One Power, than flow of stream or flight of dove

  Sweeter to glide around, to brood above.

  Tell me, my heart; — what angel-greeted door

  Or threshold of wing-winnowed threshing-floor

  Hath guest fire-fledged as thine, whose lord is Love?

  HOPE OVERTAKEN

  I deemed thy garments, O my Hope, were grey,

  So far I viewed thee. Now the space between

  Is passed at length; and garmented in green

  Even as in days of yore thou stand’st to-day.

  Ah God! and but for lingering dull dismay,

  On all that road our footsteps erst had been

  Even thus commingled, and our shadows seen

  Blent on the hedgerows and the water-way.

  O Hope of mine whose eyes are living love,

  No eyes but hers, — O Love and Hope the same! —

  Lean close to me, for now the sinking sun

  That warmed our feet scarce gilds our hair above.

  O hers thy voice and very hers thy name!

  Alas, cling round me, for the day is done!

  LOVE AND HOPE

  Bless love and hope. Full many a withered year

  Whirled past us, eddying to its chill doomsday;

  And clasped together where the blown leaves lay,

  We long have knelt and wept full many a tear.

  Yet lo! one hour at last, the Spring’s compeer,

  Flutes softly to us from some green byeway:*

  Those years, those tears are dead, but only they: —

  Bless love and hope, true soul; for we are here.

  Cling heart to heart; nor of this hour demand

  Whether in very truth, when we are dead,

  Our hearts shall wake to know Love’s golden head

  Sole sunshine of the imperishable land;

  Or but discern, through night’s unfeatured scope,

  Scorn-fired at length the illusive eyes of Hope.

  *[sic]

  CLOUD AND WIND

  Love, should I fear death most for you or me?

  Yet if you die, can I not follow you,

  Forcing the straits of change? Alas! but who

  Shall wrest a bond from night’s inveteracy,

  Ere yet my hazardous soul put forth, to be

  Her warrant against all her haste might rue? —

  Ah! in your eyes so reached what dumb adieu,

  What unsunned gyres of waste eternity?

  And if I die the first, shall death be then

  A lampless watchtower whence I see you weep? —

  Or (woe is me!) a bed wherein my sleep

  Ne’er notes (as death’s dear cup at last you drain),

  The hour when you too learn that all is vain

  And that Hope sows what Love shall never reap?

  SECRET PARTING

  Because our talk was of the cloud-control

  And moon-track of the journeying face of Fate,

  Her tremulous kisses faltered at love’s gate

  And her eyes dreamed against a distant goal:

  But soon, remembering her how brief the whole

  Of joy, which its own hours annihilate,

  Her set gaze gathered, thirstier than of late,

  And as she kissed, her mouth became her soul.

  Thence in what ways we wandered, and how strove

  To build with fire-tried vows the piteous home

  Which memory haunts and whither sleep may roam, —

  They only know for whom the roof of Love

  Is the still-seated secret of the grove,

  Nor spire may rise nor bell be heard therefrom.

  PARTED LOVE

  What shall be said of this embattled day

  And armed occupation of this night

  By all thy foes beleaguered, — now when sight

  Nor sound denotes the loved one far away?

  Of these thy vanquished hours what shalt thou say, —

  As every sense to which she dealt delight

  Now labours lonely o’er the stark noon-height

  To reach the sunset’s desolate disarray?

  Stand still, fond fettered wretch! while Memory’s art

  Parades the Past before thy face, and lures

  Thy spirit to her passionate portraitures:

  Till the tempestuous tide-gates flung apart

  Flood with wild will the hollows of thy heart,

  And thy heart r
ends thee, and thy body endures.

  BROKEN MUSIC

  The mother will not turn, who thinks she hears

  Her nursling’s speech first grow articulate;

  But breathless with averted eyes elate

  She sits, with open lips and open ears,

  That it may call her twice. ‘Mid doubts and fears

  Thus oft my soul has hearkened; till the song,

  A central moan for days, at length found tongue,

  And the sweet music welled and the sweet tears.

  But now, whatever while the soul is fain

  To list that wonted murmur, as it were

  The speech-bound sea-shell’s low importunate strain, —

  No breath of song, thy voice alone is there,

  O bitterly beloved! and all her gain

  Is but the pang of unpermitted prayer.

  DEATH-IN-LOVE

  There came an image in Life’s retinue

  That had Love’s wings and bore his gonfalon:

  Fair was the web, and nobly wrought thereon,

  O soul-sequestered face, thy form and hue!

  Bewildering sounds, such as Spring wakens to,

  Shook in its folds; and through my heart its power

  Sped trackless as the immemorable hour

  When birth’s dark portal groaned and all was new.

  But a veiled woman followed, and she caught

  The banner round its staff, to furl and cling, —

  Then plucked a feather from the bearer’s wing,

  And held it to his lips that stirred it not,

  And said to me, ‘Behold, there is no breath:

  I and this Love are one, and I am Death.’

  WILLOWWOOD

  I

  I sat with Love upon a woodside well,

  Leaning across the water, I and he;

  Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me,

  But touched his lute wherein was audible

  The certain secret thing he had to tell:

  Only our mirrored eyes met silently

  In the low wave; and that sound came to be

  The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell.