I Saw Your Image In A Dream (Italian Sonnet) Poem by Gert Strydom

(in answer to Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

I saw your image in a dream's retinue
where you excelled with love's gonfalon,
lovely were you and beautiful your works thereon
with a soulful face filled with personality's hue,

while to my life you did your attention turn to
and then suddenly your lifelike image was just gone,
where I reflected on a lovely statute of stone
but as with birth suddenly my life was new,

into the essence of it someone was caught
who to the principles of truthful love does cling
and on my cheek I suddenly felt your breath,
as in real life a living person truly aught,
where right here with me your are existing,
do adore me through both life and death.

[Reference:"Death-in-love" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.]