England)

#123 on top 500 poets

''A Sonnet is a moment's monument,—
Memorial from the Soul's eternity
To one dead deathless hour.''
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), British poet. A Sonnet. . . Norton Anthology of Poetry, The. Alexander W. Allison and others, eds. (3d ed., 1983) W. W. Norton & Company.
''Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;''
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), British poet. A Superscription. . . Oxford Book of Nineteenth-Century English Verse, The. John Hayward, ed. (1964; reprinted, with corrections, 1965) Oxford University Press.
''So Spring comes merry towards me here, but earns
No answering smile from me, whose life is twin'd
With the dead boughs that winter still must bind,''
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), British poet. Barren Spring. . . Oxford Book of Nineteenth-Century English Verse, The. John Hayward, ed. (1964; reprinted, with corrections, 1965) Oxford University Press.
''The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent
And round his heart one strangling golden hair.''
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), British poet. Body's Beauty. . . Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Frank Kermode and John Hollander, general eds. (1973) Oxford University Press (Also published as six paperback vols.: Medieval English Literature, J. B. Trapp, ed.; The Literature of Renaissance England, John Hollander and Frank Kermode, eds.; The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, Martin Price, ed.; Romantic Poetry and Prose, Harold Bloom and Lionel Trilling, eds.; Victorian Prose and Poetry, Lionel Trilling and Harold Bloom, eds.; Modern British Literature, Frank Kermode and John Hollander, eds.).
''O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,—
How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing?''
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), British poet. Lovesight. . . Oxford Book of Nineteenth-Century English Verse, The. John Hayward, ed. (1964; reprinted, with corrections, 1965) Oxford University Press.
''Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragonfly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky—
So this winged hour is dropped to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.''
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), British poet. Silent Noon. . . Oxford Book of Nineteenth-Century English Verse, The. John Hayward, ed. (1964; reprinted, with corrections, 1965) Oxford University Press.
''I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.''
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), British poet. Sudden Light (l. 1-5). . . Oxford Book of Nineteenth-Century English Verse, The. John Hayward, ed. (1964; reprinted, with corrections, 1965) Oxford University Press.
''Among those few, out of the sun,
The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one.

From perfect grief there need not be
Wisdom or even memory:
One thing then learnt remains to me,—
The woodspurge has a cup of three.''
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), British poet. The Woodspurge (l. 11-16). . . Oxford Book of English Verse, The, 1250-1918. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. (New ed., rev. and enl., 1939) Oxford University Press.
''The wind flapped loose, the wind was still,
Shaken out dead from tree and hill:
I had walked on at the wind's will,—
I sat now, for the wind was still.''
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), British poet. The Woodspurge (l. 1-4). . . Oxford Book of English Verse, The, 1250-1918. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. (New ed., rev. and enl., 1939) Oxford University Press.
''What of the heart without her? Nay, poor heart,
Of thee what word remains ere speech be still?
A wayfarer by barren ways and chill,
Steep ways and weary, without her thou art,
Where the long cloud, the long wood's counterpart,
Sheds doubled darkness up the labouring hill.''
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), British poet. Without Her. . . Oxford Book of Nineteenth-Century English Verse, The. John Hayward, ed. (1964; reprinted, with corrections, 1965) Oxford University Press.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882 / London / England)

Quotations

Broken Music