Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life. Sonnet 92. The Sun's Shame - 1

Beholding youth and hope in mockery caught
From life; and mocking pulses that remain
When the soul's death of bodily death is fain;
Honour unknown, and honour known unsought;
And penury's sedulous self-torturing thought
On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane;
And longed-for woman longing all in vain
For lonely man with love's desire distraught;
And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasantness,
Given unto bodies of whose souls men say,
None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they:
Beholding these things, I behold no less
The blushing morn and blushing eve confess
The shame that loads the intolerable day.

1. The House of Life. Sonnet 70. The Hill Summit
2. The House of Life. Sonnet 66. The Heart of the Night
3. The House of Life. Sonnet 27. Heart's Compass
4. The House of Life. Sonnet 28. Soul-Light
5. The House of Life. Sonnet 63. Inclusiveness

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