Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life. Sonnet 70. The Hill Summit

This feast-day of the sun, his altar there
In the broad west has blazed for vesper-song;
And I have loitered in the vale too long
And gaze now a belated worshipper.
Yet may I not forget that I was 'ware,
So journeying, of his face at intervals
Transfigured where the fringed horizon falls,
A fiery bush with coruscating hair.

And now that I have climbed and won this height,
I must tread downward through the sloping shade
And travel the bewildered tracks till night.
Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed
And see the gold air and the silver fade
And the last bird fly into the last light.

1. On Certain Elizabethan Revivals
2. Penumbra
3. At Issue
4. The House of Life. Sonnet 66. The Heart of the Night
5. The House of Life. Sonnet 28. Soul-Light

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