Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life. Sonnet 80. From Dawn to Noon

As the child knows not if his mother's face
Be fair; nor of his elders yet can deem
What each most is; but as of hill or stream
At dawn, all glimmering life surrounds his place:
Who yet, tow'rd noon of his half-weary race,
Pausing awhile beneath the high sun-beam
And gazing steadily back,--as through a dream,
In things long past new features now can trace:--

Even so the thought that is at length fullgrown
Turns back to note the sun-smit paths, all grey
And marvellous once, where first it walked alone;
And haply doubts, amid the unblenching day,
Which most or least impelled its onward way,--
Those unknown things or these things overknown.

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

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