Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life. Sonnet 27. Heart's Compass

Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are;
A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar
Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon;
Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone;
Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar,
Being of its furthest fires oracular;--
The evident heart of all life sown and mown.

Even such Love is; and is not thy name Love?
Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apart
All gathering clouds of Night's ambiguous art;
Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes above;
And simply, as some gage of flower or glove,
Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart.

1. On Certain Elizabethan Revivals
2. The House of Life. Sonnet 72. The Choice - 2
3. The House of Life. Sonnet 35. The Lamp's Shrine
4. The House of Life. Sonnet 11. The Love-Letter
5. The House of Life. Sonnet 92. The Sun's Shame - 1

Print

1399 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version