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Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The House of Life. Sonnet 88. Hero’s Lamp
That lamp thou fill'st in Eros' name to-night, O Hero, shall the Sestian augurs take Tomorrow, and for drowned Leander's sake To Anteros its fireless lip shall plight. Aye, waft the unspoken vow: yet dawn's first light On ebbing storm and life twice ebb'd must break; While 'neath no sunrise, by the Avernian Lake, Lo where Love walks, Death's pallid neophyte. That lamp within Anteros' shadowy shrine Shall stand unlit (for so the gods decree) Till some one man the happy issue see Of a life's love, and bid its flame to shine: Which still may rest unfir'd; for, theirs or thine, O brother, what brought love to them or thee?
After the deaths of Leander and of Hero, the signal-lamp was dedicated to Anteros, with the edict that no man should light it unless his love had proved fortunate.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s other poems:
- The House of Life. Sonnet 17. Beauty’s Pageant
- The Staff and Scrip
- The House of Life. Sonnet 35. The Lamp’s Shrine
- The House of Life. Sonnet 92. The Sun’s Shame – 1
- The House of Life. Sonnet 21. Love-Sweetness
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