Shakespear
Dear friend, if there be any bond
Which friendship wins not much beyond—
So old and fond, since thought began—
It may be that whose subtle span
Binds Shakespear to an English man.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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The Seed of David (For a Picture)
Christ sprang from David Shepherd, and even so
From David King, being born of high and low.
The Shepherd lays his crook, the King his crown,
Here at Christ's feet, and high and low bow down.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Untitled #1
CON manto d'oro, collana, ed anelli,
Le piace aver con quelli
Non altro che una rosa ai suoi capelli.
WITH golden mantle, rings, and necklace fair,
It likes her best to wear
Only a rose within her golden hair.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Michael Scott’s Wooing
ROSE-SHEATHED beside the rosebud tongue
Lurks the young adder's tooth;
Milk-mild from new-born hemlock-bluth
The earliest drops are wrung:
And sweet the flower of his first youth
When Michael Scott was young.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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An Epitaph For Keats
THROUGH one, years since hanged and forgot
Who stabbed backs by the Quarter,
Here lieth one who—while Time's stream
Runneth, as God hath taught her,
Bearing man's fame to men,—will have
His great name writ in water.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Thomae Fides
“DIGITUM tuum, Thoma,
Infer, et vide manûs!
Manum tuam, Thoma,
Affer, et mitte in latus.”
“Dominus et Deus,
Deus,” dixit,
“Et Dominus meus.”
“Quia me vidisti,
Thoma, credidisti.
Beati qui non viderunt,
Thoma, et crediderunt.”
“Dominus et Deus,
Deus,” dixit,
“Et Dominus meus.”
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Aspecta Medusa ( For A Drawing)
Andromeda, by Perseus sav'd and wed,
Hanker'd each day to see the Gorgon's head:
Till o'er a fount he held it, bade her lean,
And mirror'd in the wave was safely seen
That death she liv'd by.
Let not thine eyes know
Any forbidden thing itself, although
It once should save as well as kill: but be
Its shadow upon life enough for thee.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Dis Manibus
Gustave Flaubert, whose honoured rôle
Was to be scribe to Nero's soul,
And make French flesh to creep and crow
O'er Carthaginian Salammbô,
Lies here—in body, as in the brain,
Like Morgue-corpse tumid from the Seine.
What shall be writ above his grave?
Vitellius', Nero's dying stave?
“Fui Imperator,” shall it flow,
Or “Qualis artifex pereo.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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On Browning’s Sordello
“SORDELLO'S story,” the Sphinx yawned and said,
“Who would has heard.” Is that enough? Who could,
'Twere not amiss to add, has understood:
Who understood perhaps has profited.
For my part I could tell a tale instead
Of one who, dreaming of no likelihood
Even that the “Book” was going to end for good,
Turned the last page, and lo the book was read.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Smithereens
UNCERTAIN-AGED Miss Thereabouts,
Tough fossil of her teens,
Has lifted up with saving hand
The ruined Smithereens.
Down the dark steps of debt that hand
Sped like an angel's wing,
Deep—dowered with gold, and for itself
Brought back a golden ring.
Ah lovely Lucy Lovandove,
10 That ring's a snake, and means
Woe without end: therein lies crushed
Thy heart—to smithereens.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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