The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Edited with Preface and Notes by William M. Rossetti: Revised and Enlarged Edition |
 | I. |
| II. |
| III. |
|
|
|
|
 | The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti |  |
I
Beholding youth and hope in mockery caughtFrom life; and mocking pulses that remain
When the soul's death of bodily death is fain;
Honour unknown, and honour known unsought;
And penury's sedulous self-torturing thought
On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane;
And longed-for woman longing all in vain
For lonely man with love's desire distraught;
And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasantness,
Given unto bodies of whose souls men say,
None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they:—
Beholding these things, I behold no less
The blushing morn and blushing eve confess
The shame that loads the intolerable day.
| The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti | |