Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life. Sonnet 64. Ardor and Memory

The cuckoo-throb, the heartbeat of the Spring;
The rosebud's blush that leaves it as it grows
Into the full-eyed fair unblushing rose;
The summer clouds that visit every wing
With fires of sunrise and of sunsetting;
The furtive flickering streams to light re-born
'Mid airs new-fledged and valorous lusts of morn,
While all the daughters of the daybreak sing:--

These ardor loves, and memory: and when flown
All joys, and through dark forest-boughs in flight
The wind swoops onward brandishing the light,
Even yet the rose-tree's verdure left alone
Will flush all ruddy though the rose be gone;
With ditties and with dirges infinite.

1. To Thomas Woolner
2. The House of Life. Sonnet 68. A Dark Day
3. The House of Life. Sonnet 23. Love's Baubles
4. The House of Life. Sonnet 48. Death-in-Love
5. The House of Life. Sonnet 96. Life the Beloved

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