Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life. Sonnet 74. Old and New Art - 1. St. Luke the Painter

Give honor unto Luke Evangelist;
For he it was (the aged legends say)
Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray.
Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mist
Of devious symbols: but soon having wist
How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day
Are symbols also in some deeper way,
She looked through these to God and was God's priest.

And if, past noon, her toil began to irk,
And she sought talismans, and turned in vain
To soulless self-reflections of man's skill,
Yet now, in this the twilight, she might still
Kneel in the latter grass to pray again,
Ere the night cometh and she may not work.

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 92. The Sun's Shame - 1
5. The House of Life. Sonnet 28. Soul-Light

Print

1261 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version