Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life. Sonnet 6. The Kiss

What smouldering senses in death's sick delay
Or seizure of malign vicissitude
Can rob this body of honour, or denude
This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?
For lo! even now my lady's lips did play
With these my lips such consonant interlude
As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.

I was a child beneath her touch, -- a man
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she, --
A spirit when her spirit looked through me, --
A god when all our life-breath met to fan
Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
Fire within fire, desire in deity. 

1. Last Sonnets at Paris
2. The House of Life. Sonnet 20. Gracious Moonlight
3. To Thomas Woolner
4. The House of Life. Sonnet 81. Memorial Thresholds
5. At Issue

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