Barcarola
PER carità,
Mostrami amore:
Mi punge il cuore,
Ma non si sa
Dove è amore.
Che mi fa
La bella età,
Sè non si sa
Come amerà?
Ahi me solingo!
Il cuor mi stringo!
Non più ramingo,
Per carità!
Per carità,
Mostra mi il cielo:
Tutto è un velo,
E non si sa
Dove è il cielo.
Se si sta
Così colà,
[...] Read more
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Possession
THERE is a cloud above the sunset hill,
That wends and makes no stay,
For its goal lies beyond the fiery west;
A lingering breath no calm can chase away,
The onward labour of the wind's last will;
A flying foam that overleaps the crest
Of the top wave: and in possession still
A further reach of longing; though at rest
From all the yearning years,
10 Together in the bosom of that day
Ye cling, and with your kisses drink your tears.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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The Mirror
SHE knew it not:—most perfect pain
To learn: this too she knew not. Strife
For me, calm hers, as from the first.
'Twas but another bubble burst
Upon the curdling draught of life,—
My silent patience mine again.
As who, of forms that crowd unknown
Within a distant mirror's shade,
Deems such an one himself, and makes
Some sign; but when the image shakes
No whit, he finds his thought betray'd,
And must seek elsewhere for his own.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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First Love Remembered
PEACE in her chamber, wheresoe'er
It be, a holy place:
The thought still brings my soul such grace
As morning meadows wear.
Whether it still be small and light,
A maid's who dreams alone,
As from her orchard-gate the moon
Its ceiling showed at night:
Or whether, in a shadow dense
As nuptial hymns invoke,
Innocent maidenhood awoke
To married innocence:
There still the thanks unheard await
The unconscious gift bequeathed:
For there my soul this hour has breathed
An air inviolate.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Joan of Arc
This word had Merlin said from of old:—
That out of the Oak Tree Shade
In the day of France's direst dule,
God's hand should send a Maid.
And where Domremy, by Burgundy,
Sits crowned with its oakenshaw,
Even there Joan d'Arc, the Maid of God's Ark,
The light of the day first saw.
Where spirits go, what man may know?
Yet this may of man be said:—
That, when Time is o'er and all hath sufficed,
Shall the world's chief Christ-fire rise to Christ
From the ashes of Joan the Maid.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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A young Fir-Wood
THESE little firs to-day are things
To clasp into a giant's cap,
Or fans to suit his lady's lap.
From many winters many springs
Shall cherish them in strength and sap
Till they be marked upon the map,
A wood for the wind's wanderings.
All seed is in the sower's hands:
And what at first was trained to spread
Its shelter for some single head,—
Yea, even such fellowship of wands,—
May hide the sunset, and the shade
Of its great multitude be laid
Upon the earth and elder sands.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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The Sea Limits
Consider the sea's listless chime;
Time's self it is, made audible -
The murmur of the earth's own shell.
Secret continuance sublime
Is the sea's end: our sight may pass
No furlong further. Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.
No quiet, which is death's -it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,
Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands
Grey and not known, along its path.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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The Honeysuckle
I PLUCKED a honeysuckle where
The hedge on high is quick with thorn,
And climbing for the prize, was torn,
And fouled my feet in quag-water;
And by the thorns and by the wind
The blossom that I took was thinn'd,
And yet I found it sweet and fair.
Thence to a richer growth I came,
Where, nursed in mellow intercourse,
The honeysuckles sprang by scores,
Not harried like my single stem,
All virgin lamps of scent and dew.
So from my hand that first I threw,
Yet plucked not any more of them.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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A Half-Way Pause
The turn of noontide has begun.
In the weak breeze the sunshine yields.
There is a bell upon the fields.
On the long hedgerow's tangled run
A low white cottage intervenes:
Against the wall a blind man leans,
And sways his face to have the sun.
Our horses' hoofs stir in the road,
Quiet and sharp. Light hath a song
Whose silence, being heard, seems long.
The point of noon maketh abode,
And will not be at once gone through.
The sky's deep colour saddens you,
And the heat weighs a dreamy load.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Sudden Light
I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet, keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
You have been mine before,--
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at the swallow's soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall--I knew it all of yore.
Then, now,--perchance again!...
O round mine eyes your tresses shake!
Shall we not lie as we have lain
Thus for Love's sake,
And sleep, and wake, yet never break the chain?
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti from Poems: An Offering to Lancashire (1854)
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