Dante Gabriel Rossetti Poems

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
...

A little while a little love
The hour yet bears for thee and me
Who have not drawn the veil to see
If still our heaven be lit above.
...

Young Love lies sleeping
In May-time of the year,
Among the lilies,
Lapped in the tender light:
...

The mother will not turn, who thinks she hears
Her nursling's speech first grow articulate;
But breathless with averted eyes elate
She sits, with open lips and open ears,
...

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, --
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
...

The gloom that breathes upon me with these airs
Is like the drops which stike the traveller's brow
Who knows not, darkling, if they bring him now
Fresh storm, or be old rain the covert bears.
...

The blessed damozel lean'd out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters still'd at even;
...

I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
...

AH! dear one, we were young so long,
It seemed that youth would never go,
For skies and trees were ever in song
And water in singing flow
...

(For one of his own pictures)

Her lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree,
While flashing fingers weave the sweet-strung spell
...