Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life. Sonnet 56. True Woman - 1. Herself

To be a Sweetness more desired than Spring;
A bodily beauty more acceptable
Than the wild rose-tree's arch that crowns the fell;
To be an essence more environing
Than wine's drained juice; a music ravishing
More than the passionate pulse of Philomel;--
To be all this 'neath one soft bosom's swell
That is the flower of life:--how strange a thing!

How strange a thing to be what Man can know
But as a sacred secret! Heaven's own screen
Hides her soul's purest depth and loveliest glow;
Closely withheld, as all things most unseen,
The wave-bowered pearl,--the heart-shaped seal of green
That flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow.

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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