Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life. Sonnet 62. The Soul's Sphere

Some prisoned moon in steep cloud-fastnesses,--
Throned queen and thralled; some dying sun whose pyre
Blazed with momentous memorable fire;--
Who hath not yearned and fed his heart with these?
Who, sleepless, hath not anguished to appease
Tragical shadow's realm of sound and sight
Conjectured in the lamentable night? . . .
Lo! the soul's sphere of infinite images!

What sense shall count them? Whether it forecast
The rose-winged hours that flutter in the van
Of Love's unquestioning unrevealed span,--
Visions of golden futures: or that last
Wild pageant of the accumulated past
That clangs and flashes for a drowning man.

1. The House of Life. Sonnet 70. The Hill Summit
2. On Certain Elizabethan Revivals
3. At Issue
4. The House of Life. Sonnet 66. The Heart of the Night
5. Penumbra

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