Messer Dante A Messer Bruno

ESSENDO pazzo, il bue al guado intoppa,
E volta e sfugge e d'acqua và digiuno:
E tu, pittor, che come lui sei Bruno,
Temendo un detto, dici cosa zoppa.
Acqua di guado no, ma vino in coppa,
Domanda il labbro al timoroso core
Dovendo nominare il CREDITORE;
E manca il dir, chè la paura è troppa.
“Fatto” lo chiami; e più tremendo fatto
Che il creditore non dimostra il sole
Ad uomo sano, ovvero a bue ch'è matto.
Impazziti voltiamo le parole
Ieroglificamente in “gufo” o “gatto”;
E l'uom non osa dir quel che gli duole.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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L’Envoi: Brussels, Hotel Du Midi

IT'S copied out at last: very poor stuff
Writ in the cold, with pauses of the cramp.
Direct, dear William, to the Poste Restante
At Ghent—here written Gand—Gong, Hunticè.
We go to Antwerp first, but shall not stay;
After, to Ghent and Bruges; and after that
To Ostend, and thence home. To Waterloo
Was yesterday. Thither, and there, and back,
I managed to scrawl something,—most of it
Bad, and the sonnet at the close mere slosh.
'Twas only made because I was knocked up,
And it helped yawning. Take it, and the rest.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Even So

So it is, my dear.
All such things touch secret strings
For heavy hearts to hear.
So it is, my dear.
Very like indeed:
Sea and sky, afar, on high,
Sand and strewn seaweed,—
Very like indeed.
But the sea stands spread
s one wall with the flat skies,
Where the lean black craft like flies
Seem well-nigh stagnated,
Soon to drop off dead.
Seemed it so to us
When I was thine and thou wast mine,
And all these things were thus,
But all our world in us?
Could we be so now?
Not if all beneath heaven's pall
Lay dead but I and thou,

[...] Read more

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Song and Music

O leave your hand where it lies cool
Upon the eyes whose lids are hot:
Its rosy shade is bountiful
Of silence, and assuages thought.
O lay your lips against your hand
And let me feel your breath through it,
While through the sense your song shall fit
The soul to understand.

The music lives upon my brain
Between your hands within mine eyes;
It stirs your lifted throat like pain,
An aching pulse of melodies.
Lean nearer, let the music pause:
The soul may better understand
Your music, shadowed in your hand
Now while the song withdraws.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Autumn Song

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

And how the swift beat of the brain
Falters because it is in vain,
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf
Knowest thou not? and how the chief
Of joys seems—not to suffer pain?

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf
Bound up at length for harvesting,
And how death seems a comely thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1883)
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Woodspurge

The wind flapped loose, the wind was still,
Shaken out dead from tree and hill:
I had walk’d on at the wind’s will,—
I sat now, for the wind was still.

Between my knees my forehead was,—
My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!
My hair was over in the grass,
My naked ears heard the day pass.

My eyes, wide open, had the run
Of some ten weeds to fix upon;
Among those few, out of the sun,
The woodspurge flower’d, three cups in one.

From perfect grief there need not be
Wisdom or even memory:
One thing learnt remains to me,—
The woodspurge has a cup of three.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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An Old Song Ended

“How should I your true love know
From another one?”
“By his cockle-hat and staff
And his sandal-shoon.”
“And what signs have told you now
That he hastens home?”
“Lo! the spring is nearly gone,
He is nearly come.”
“For a token is there nought,
Say, that he should bring?”
“He will bear a ring I gave
And another ring.”
“How may I, when he shall ask,
Tell him who lies there?”
“Nay, but leave my face unveiled
And unbound my hair.”
“Can you say to me some word
I shall say to him?“
“Say I'm looking in his eyes
Though my eyes are dim.”

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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The Woodspurge

The wind flapp'd loose, the wind was still,
Shaken out dead from tree and hill:
I had walk'd on at the wind's will,--
I sat now, for the wind was still.

Between my knees my forehead was,--
My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!
My hair was over in the grass,
My naked ears heard the day pass.

My eyes, wide open, had the run
Of some ten weeds to fix upon;
Among those few, out of the sun,
The woodspurge flower'd, three cups in one.

From perfect grief there need not be
Wisdom or even memory:
One thing then learnt remains to me,--
The woodspurge has a cup of three.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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During Music

O COOL unto the sense of pain
That last night's sleep could not destroy;
O warm unto the sense of joy,
That dreams its life within the brain.
What though I lean o'er thee to scan
The written music cramped and stiff;—
'Tis dark to me, as hieroglyph
On those weird bulks Egyptian.
But as from those, dumb now and strange,
A glory wanders on the earth,
Even so thy tones can call a birth
From these, to shake my soul with change.
O swift, as in melodious haste
Float o'er the keys thy fingers small;
O soft, as is the rise and fall
Which stirs that shade within thy breast.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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For Our Lady Of The Rocks By Leonardo Da Vinci

Mother, is this the darkness of the end,
The Shadow of Death? and is that outer sea
Infinite imminent Eternity?
And does the death-pang by man's seed sustained
In Time's each instant cause thy face to bend
Its silent prayer upon the Son, while He
Blesses the dead with His hand silently
To His long day which hours no more offend?
Mother of grace, the pass is difficult,
Keen as these rocks, and the bewildered souls
Throng it like echoes, blindly shuddering through.
Thy name, O Lord, each spirit's voice extols,
Whose peace abides in the dark avenue
Amid the bitterness of things occult.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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