She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
V. here summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.

There go the loves that wither,

The old loves with wearier wings; And all dead years draw thither, And all disastrous things;

Dead dreams of days forsaken, Blind buds that snows have shaken, Wild leaves that winds have taken, Red strays of ruined springs.

We are not sure of sorrow
And joy was never sure;
To-day will die to-morrow;

Time stoops to no man's lure; And love, grown faint and fretful, With lips but half regretful

Sighs, and with eyes forgetful

Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be

That no life lives forever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal

In an eternal night.

PASTICHE

(From Poems and Ballads, 1878)

Now the days are all gone over
Of our singing, love by lover,
Days of summer-coloured seas
Blown adrift through beam and breeze.

Now the nights are all past over
Of our dreaming, dreams that hover
In a mist of fair false things,
Nights afloat on wide wan wings.

Now the loves with faith for mother, Now the fears with hope for brother, Scarce are with us as strange words, Notes from songs of last year's birds.

Now all good that comes or goes is
As the smell of last year's roses,
As the radiance in our eyes
Shot from summer's ere he dies.

Now the morning faintlier risen
Seems no god come forth of prison,
But a bird of plume plucked wing,
Pale with thought of evening.

Now hath hope, outraced in running,
Given the torch up of his cunning
And the palm he thought to wear
Even to his own strong child-despair.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

1828-1882

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL

(Third Version, from Poems, 1870)

The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;

She had three lilies in her hand,

And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary's gift,
For service meetly worn;
Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.

Herseemed she scarce had been a day
One of God's choristers;

The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;

Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.

(To one, it is ten years of years.
Yet now, and in this place,

Surely she leaned o'er me-her hair
Fell all about my face. . .
Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves.
The whole year sets apace.)

It was the rampart of God's house
That she was standing on;
By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun;

So high, that looking downward thence
She scarce could see the sun.

It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.

Beneath, the tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge

The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge.

Around her, lovers, newly met
'Mid deathless love's acclaims,
Spoke evermore among themselves
Their heart-remembered names;
And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bowed herself and stooped Out of the circling charm;

Until her bosom must have made

The bar she leaned on warm,

And the lilies lay as if asleep
Along her bended arm.

From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
Time like a pulse shake fierce

Through all the world. Her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce

Its path; and now she spoke as when
The stars sang in their spheres.

The sun was gone now; the curled moon
Was like a little feather

Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.

(Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song, Strove not her accents there,

Fain to be harkened? When those bells
Possessed the mid-day air,

Strove not her steps to reach my side
Down all the echoing stair?)

"I wish that he were come to me, For he will come," she said.

"Have I not prayed in Heaven?—on earth, Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd?

Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
And shall I feel afraid?

"When round his head the aureole clings,

And he is clothed in white,

I'll take his hand and go with him
To the deep wells of light;

As unto a stream we will step down,
And bathe there in God's sight.