Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Данте Габриэль Россетти)
The House of Life. Sonnet 36. Life-in-Love
Not in thy body is thy life at all But in this lady's lips and hands and eyes; Through these she yields thee life that vivifies What else were sorrow's servant and death's thrall. Look on thyself without her, and recall The waste remembrance and forlorn surmise That lived but in a dead-drawn breath of sighs O'er vanished hours and hours eventual. Even so much life hath the poor tress of hair Which, stored apart, is all love hath to show For heart-beats and for fire-heats long ago; Even so much life endures unknown, even where, 'Mid change the changeless night environeth, Lies all that golden hair undimmed in death.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s other poems:
- The House of Life. Sonnet 17. Beauty’s Pageant
- The House of Life. Sonnet 92. The Sun’s Shame – 1
- The House of Life. Sonnet 50. Willowwood – 2
- The Staff and Scrip
- The House of Life. Sonnet 35. The Lamp’s Shrine
893