Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life. Sonnet 81. Memorial Thresholds

What place so strange,--though unrevealéd snow
With unimaginable fires arise
At the earth's end,--what passion of surprise
Like frost-bound fire-girt scenes of long ago?
Lo! this is none but I this hour; and lo!
This is the very place which to mine eyes
Those mortal hours in vain immortalize,
'Mid hurrying crowds, with what alone I know.

City, of thine a single simple door,
By some new Power reduplicate, must be
Even yet my life-porch in eternity,
Even with one presence filled, as once of yore:
Or mocking winds whirl round a chaff-strown floor
Thee and thy years and these my words and me.

1. The House of Life. Sonnet 20. Gracious Moonlight
2. Last Sonnets at Paris
3. To Thomas Woolner
4. At Issue
5. Johannes Ronge

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