The Gloom That Breathes Upon Me With These Airs Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Gloom That Breathes Upon Me With These Airs

Rating: 3.7


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.
Ah! bodes this hour some harvest of new tares,
Or hath but memory of the day whose plough
Sowed hunger once, -- the night at length when thou,
O prayer found vain, didst fall from out my prayers?

How prickly were the growths which yet how smooth,
Along the hedgerows of this journey shed,
Lie by Time's grace till night and sleep may soothe!
Even as the thisteldown from pathsides dead
Gleaned by a girl in autumns of her youth,
Which one new year makes soft her marriage-bed.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Michael Pruchnicki 30 November 2009

A sonnet by one of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which was dedicated to 'enforcing and encouraging adherence to the simplicity of nature' in both painting and poetry. This sonnet demonstrates the mysticism and fantasy that Rossetti and his peers displayed in their work. Here the speaker uses the gloom and rain that begins falling to reflect his feelings about the one who has fallen from his prayers - the girl who gleaned the thistledown at harvest time in her youth and used the down to make her 'marriage-bed' one fine day.

7 3 Reply
Ramesh T A 30 November 2009

All hardships of life are made into usual things with the passage of time like the night rest or sleep or a girl's autumn life! Nice poem of Pre-Raphaelite poet!

4 3 Reply
James Mclain 30 November 2008

Hello, I am glad you could join us today........

4 2 Reply
Nicola Burkett 30 November 2006

Rossetti along with his sister Christina, Were among the many masters of Pre Raphaelite art and poetry of the Victorian era. In fact it was by reading Dante's & Christina's work that I become immensely interested in poetry. An exquisite poem.... Hugs Nickie x x

4 1 Reply
ainsly richard 30 November 2005

i like it but how did it get to be the poem of the day xoxo ambeer xoxo

2 1 Reply
Gangadharan Nair Pulingat 30 November 2014

I like this poem and the gloom feeling is expressed so nicely and it is a good poem.

1 2 Reply
Ronald James De Langen 30 November 2011

Nice poem, for some reason I feel the gloom is due to the loss of someone, maybe this girl who is married?

4 4 Reply
Jodie Cooper 30 November 2011

i love this poem it is so full of emotion i would like to put some of my poems on line.

5 3 Reply
xxbecca loves mitchxx mitchy 30 November 2009

hey this poem is cool and i like it is made ily becca

4 4 Reply
NIAKESHIA Fereguson 30 November 2009

i love this lol it good

4 4 Reply
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