Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life: 36. 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 thee 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 liv’d but in a dead—drawn breath of sighs
O’er vanish’d hours and hours eventual.
 
Even so much life hath the poor tress of hair
        Which, stor’d 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 undimm’d in death.
Other works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti...



Top