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.