Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Данте Габриэль Россетти)

The House of Life. Sonnet 13. Youth’s Antiphony

"I love you, sweet: how can you ever learn
How much I love you?" "You I love even so,
And so I learn it." "Sweet, you cannot know
How fair you are." "If fair enough to earn
Your love, so much is all my love's concern.
"My love grows hourly, sweet." "Mine too doth grow,
Yet love seemed full so many hours ago!"
Thus lovers speak, till kisses claim their turn.

Ah! happy they to whom such words as these
In youth have served for speech the whole day long,
Hour after hour, remote from the world's throng,
Work, contest, fame, all life's confederate pleas,--
What while Love breathed in sighs and silences
Through two blent souls one rapturous undersong.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s other poems:

  1. The House of Life. Sonnet 17. Beauty’s Pageant
  2. The House of Life. Sonnet 35. The Lamp’s Shrine
  3. The House of Life. Sonnet 92. The Sun’s Shame – 1
  4. The House of Life. Sonnet 21. Love-Sweetness
  5. The House of Life. Sonnet 50. Willowwood – 2

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