Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Shepherd lays his crook, the King his crown,Here at Christ’s feet, and high and low bow down.

Is not the day which God’s word promisethTo come man knows not when? In yonder skyNow while we speak, the sun speeds forth: can IOr thou assure him of his goal? God’s breathEven at this moment haply quickenethThe air to a flame; till spirits, always nighThough screen’d and hid, shall walk the daylight here.And dost…

The thought still brings my soul such graceAs morning meadows wear.Whether it still be small and light,A maid’s who dreams alone,As from her orchard-gate the moonIts ceiling showed at night:Or whether, in a shadow denseAs nuptial hymns invoke,Innocent maidenhood awokeTo married innocence:There still the thanks unheard awaitThe unconscious gift bequeathed:For there my soul this hour…

Streets footsore; minute whisking milliners,Dubbed graceful, but at whom one’s eye demurs,Knowing of England; ladies, much the same;Bland smiling dogs with manes—a few of themAt pains to look like sporting characters;Vast humming tabbies smothered in their furs;Groseille, orgeat, meringues à la crême—Good things to study; ditto bad—the mapsOf sloshy colour in the Louvre; cinq-francsThe largest…

While the blown grass, Mary,With timid voice and wary,Sings in your ear:—The grass which round us, Mary,Shuts like a nest;By your dear limbs, dear Mary,Lighter than limbs of Faery,Daintily press’d.Back with it all though, Mary,Back and aside;The wind comes this way, Mary,And here the trees are airyAnd the skies are wide.What do your eyes fear,…

A few days backI bound myself by oath to smackMy lips o’er sloshy tea, and attackWhite, brown, or blackBread, and vile jokes to crack,This night with brutes whose knackWould squeeze a pun in Syriac.And for to—morrow, alack!I have a model on my track,So that I may not pack.Of course I writhe upon the rack:Though as…

And so I learn it.” “Sweet, you cannot knowHow fair you are.” “If fair enough to earnYour love, so much is all my love’s concern.”“My love grows hourly, sweet.” “Mine too doth grow,Yet love seemed full so many hours ago!”Thus lovers speak, till kisses claim their turn.Ah! happy they to whom such words as theseIn…

A little storied web wherein my heartFrom leaf to leaf is read as in a book.One part in the middle of the web begun and left unfinished;a face with ravelled threads falling over it and hiding it. Love saysthat the time has come to resume and finish this part of the web,though much has come…

Love shackled with Vain-longing, hand to hand:And one was eyed as the blue vault above:But hope tempestuous like a fire-cloud hoveI’ the other’s gaze, even as in his whose wandVainly all night with spell-wrought power has spann’dThe unyielding caves of some deep treasure-trove.Also his lips, two writhen flakes of flame,Made moan: “Alas O Love, thus…