Sonnet XXXVI: Life-In-Love

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828 (London) – 1882 (Birchington-on-Sea)



Not in thy body is thy life at all,
But in this lady's lips and hands and eyes;
Through these she yields thee life that vivifies
What else were sorrow's servant and death's thrall.
Look on thyself without her, and recall
The waste remembrance and forlorn surmise
That lived but in a dead-drawn breath of sighs
O'er vanished hours and hours eventual.
Even so much life hath the poor tress of hair
Which, stored apart, is all love hath to show
For heart-beats and for fire-heats long ago;
Even so much life endures unknown, even where,
'Mid change the changeless night environeth,
Lies all that golden hair undimmed in death.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
26

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBAABBCDEEDFF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 618
Words 112
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. more…

All Dante Gabriel Rossetti poems | Dante Gabriel Rossetti Books

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