Vaporous, unaccountable,Dreamland lies forlorn of light,Hollow like a breathing shell.Ah! that from all dreams I mightChoose one dream and guide its flight!I know wellWhat her sleep should tell to-night.
There the dreams are multitudes:Some that will not wait for sleep,Deep within the August woods;Some that hum while rest may steepWeary labour laid a-heap;Interludes,Some, of grievous moods that weep.
Poets' fancies all are there:There the elf-girls flood with wingsValleys full of plaintive air;There breathe perfumes; there in ringsWhirl the foam-bewildered springs;Siren thereWinds her dizzy hair and sings.
Thence the one dream mutuallyDreamed in bridal unison,Less than waking ecstasy;Half-formed visions that make moanIn the house of birth alone;And what weAt death's wicket see, unknown.
But for mine own sleep, it liesIn one gracious form's control,Fair with honourable eyes,Lamps of a translucent soul:O their glance is loftiest dole,Sweet and wise,Wherein Love descries his goal.
Reft of her, my dreams are allClammy trance that fears the sky:Changing footpaths shift and fall;From polluted coverts nigh,Miserable phantoms sigh;Quakes the pall,And the funeral goes by.
Master, is it soothly saidThat, as echoes of man's speechFar in secret clefts are made,So do all men's bodies reachShadows o'er thy sunken beach,--Shape or shadeIn those halls pourtrayed of each?
Ah! might I, by thy good graceGroping in the windy stair,(Darkness and the breath of spaceLike loud waters everywhere,)Meeting mine own image thereFace to face,Send it from that place to her!
Nay, not I; but oh! do thou,Master, from thy shadowkindCall my body's phantom now:Bid it bear its face declin'dTill its flight her slumbers find,And her browFeel its presence bow like wind.
Where in groves the gracile SpringTrembles, with mute orisonConfidently strengthening,Water's voice and wind's as oneShed an echo in the sun.Soft as Spring,Master, bid it sing and moan.
Song shall tell how glad and strongIs the night she soothes alway;Moan shall grieve with that parched tongueOf the brazen hours of day:Sounds as of the springtide they,Moan and song,While the chill months long for May.
Not the prayers which with all leaveThe world's fluent woes prefer,--Not the praise the world doth give,Dulcet fulsome whisperer;--Let it yield my love to her,And achieveStrength that shall not grieve or err.
Wheresoe'er my dreams befall,Both at night-watch, (let it say,)And where round the sundialThe reluctant hours of day,Heartless, hopeless of their way,Rest and call;--There her glance doth fall and stay.
Suddenly her face is there:So do mounting vapours wreatheSubtle-scented transports whereThe black firwood sets its teeth.Part the boughs and look beneath,--Lilies shareSecret waters there, and breathe.
Master, bid my shadow bendWhispering thus till birth of light,Lest new shapes that sleep may sendScatter all its work to flight;--Master, master of the night,Bid it spendSpeech, song, prayer, and end aright.
Yet, ah me! if at her headThere another phantom leanMurmuring o'er the fragrant bed,--Ah! and if my spirit's queenSmile those alien prayers between,--Ah! poor shade!Shall it strive, or fade unseen?
How should love's own messengerStrive with love and be love's foe?Master, nay! If thus, in her,Sleep a wedded heart should show,--Silent let mine image go,Its old shareOf thy spell-bound air to know.
Like a vapour wan and mute,Like a flame, so let it pass;One low sigh across her lute,One dull breath against her glass;And to my sad soul, alas!One saluteCold as when Death's foot shall pass.
Then, too, let all hopes of mine,All vain hopes by night and day,Slowly at thy summoning signRise up pallid and obey.Dreams, if this is thus, were they:--Be they thine,And to dreamworld pine away.
Yet from old time, life, not death,Master, in thy rule is rife:Lo! through thee, with mingling breath,Adam woke beside his wife.O Love bring me so, for strife,Force and faith,Bring me so not death but life!
Yea, to Love himself is pour'dThis frail song of hope and fear.Thou art Love, of one accordWith kind Sleep to bring her near,Still-eyed, deep-eyed, ah how dear.Master, Lord,In her name implor'd, O hear!
About the author
About the poet
Rossetti was born, the son of an Italian patriot and political refugee and an English mother, in England. He was raised in an environment of cultural and political activity that, it has been suggested, was of more import to his learning than his formal education. This latter was constituted by a general education at King's College from 1836 to 1841 and, following drawing lessons at a school in central London at the age of fourteen, some time as a student at the Royal Academy from 1845 onwards. Here he studied painting with William Hollman Hunt and John Everett Millais who, in 1848, would set up the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with Rossetti, Rossetti's younger brother and three other students.
The school's aspirations, in this its first incarnation, was to paint true to nature: a task pursued by way of minute attention to detail and the practice of painting out of doors. Rossetti's principal contribution to the Brotherhood was his insistence on linking poetry and painting, no doubt inspired in part by his earlier and avaricious readings of Keats, Shakespeare, Goethe, Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Edgar Allan Poe and, from 1847 onwards, the works of William Blake.
'The Germ' lasted however for only four issues, all published in 1850. In 1854 Rossetti met and gained an ally in the art critic John Ruskin and, two years later, meetings with Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris set a second phase of the Brotherhood into movement.
In 1860 Rossetti married Elizabeth Siddal, also a writer and a painter, whom he had met ten years earlier in 1850. But, by this time she was an invalid and, after giving birth to a stillborn child, she died just two years later of a laudanum overdose. Rossetti had her interned with the only extent and complete manuscript of his poems, only to have her exhumed seven years later in order to retrieve his work. By this time he had moved to Chelsea where he was a joint tenant with Swinbourne and Meredith. In 1871 he moved again, this time to Kelmscott near Oxford, with William Morris and his wife Jane, the other great love of Rossetti's life whom he painted avidly.
Rossetti collapsed in 1872 after which he never really regained his health. The last decade of his life was spent mostly in a state of semi-invalid hermitry.