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95
Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
APRIL 9TH, 1882.
Gone down to take Proserpina the flowers,
Those daffodils let fall from Pluto's wain!
The grey old bard, who bound with silver chain
Of simple song his western home to ours,
Waits, happy for thy guidance to the bowers
Where, guests long since in thy mysterious train,
The singers sit right glad to entertain
Thee with thy later tale of Tuscan towers.
Those daffodils let fall from Pluto's wain!
The grey old bard, who bound with silver chain
Of simple song his western home to ours,
Waits, happy for thy guidance to the bowers
Where, guests long since in thy mysterious train,
The singers sit right glad to entertain
Thee with thy later tale of Tuscan towers.
Thou Painter-Poet, with the brow divine,
Whereon was set some memory of his face
Who gave our England song for evermore,
Thy ‘House of Life’ is broken, but back to shore
Comes Charon, with that sonnet-toll of thine
Which Death dared never keep in his dark place.
Whereon was set some memory of his face
Who gave our England song for evermore,
Thy ‘House of Life’ is broken, but back to shore
Comes Charon, with that sonnet-toll of thine
Which Death dared never keep in his dark place.
Longfellow died in the spring of the same year. The resemblance of Rossetti to the traditional portraits of Shakespeare was striking. The last lines of the sonnet refer to the book of poems which Rossetti buried at his wife's death, and was afterwards induced by his friends to take from the tomb and give to the world.
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