Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life. Sonnet 44. Cloud and Wind

Love, should I fear death most for you or me?
Yet if you die, can I not follow you,
Forcing the straits of change? Alas! but who
Shall wrest a bond from night's inveteracy,
Ere yet my hazardous soul put forth, to be
Her warrant against all her haste might rue
Ah! in your eyes so reached what dumb adieu,--
What unsunned gyres of waste eternity ?

And if I die the first, shall death be then
A lampless watchtower whence I see you weep?
Or (woe is me!--a bed wherein my sleep
Ne'er notes (as death's dear cup at last you drain)
The hour when you too learn that all is vain
And that Hope sows what Love shall never reap?

1. The House of Life. Sonnet 70. The Hill Summit
2. On Certain Elizabethan Revivals
3. At Issue
4. The House of Life. Sonnet 66. The Heart of the Night
5. Sacrament Hymn

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