Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

At Issue

THAT voice I hear,—how heard I cannot tell,—
Although my home is this, seems from my home:
There… still it trails along and murmurs “Come”;
Like the slow death of sound within a bell,
Or like the humming whine in some pink shell
Wet with the brittle beadage of the foam
Which bird—eyed damsels stoop for when they roam
By the old sea. Were't not exceeding well
To shake my soul out of this tiresome life
For a call any—whence and any—whither?
That voice knows all the life I have or had,
And mocks me not,—it's whisper is too sad.
Even to attain calm sorrow lures me thither,
Since here this search for joy wearies like strife. 

1. The House of Life. Sonnet 70. The Hill Summit
2. The House of Life. Sonnet 66. The Heart of the Night
3. On Certain Elizabethan Revivals
4. Penumbra
5. The House of Life. Sonnet 27. Heart's Compass

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