Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
Love-Lily
1Between the hands, between the brows,
2 Between the lips of Love-Lily,
3A spirit is born whose birth endows
4 My blood with fire to burn through me;
5Who breathes upon my gazing eyes,
6 Who laughs and murmurs in mine ear,
7At whose least touch my colour flies,
8 And whom my life grows faint to hear.
9Within the voice, within the heart,
10 Within the mind of Love-Lily,
11A spirit is born who lifts apart
12 His tremulous wings and looks at me;
13Who on my mouth his finger lays,
14 And shows, while whispering lutes confer,
15That Eden of Love's watered ways
16 Whose winds and spirits worship her.
17Brows, hands, and lips, heart, mind, and voice,
18 Kisses and words of Love-Lily,--
19Oh! bid me with your joy rejoice
20 Till riotous longing rest in me!
21Ah! let not hope be still distraught,
22 But find in her its gracious goal,
23Whose speech Truth knows not from her thought
24 Nor Love her body from her soul.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poems (Boston: Roberts Bros., 1870), pp. 237-38. PR 5240 E70 ROBA.
First publication date:
1870
RPO poem editor: W. J. Alexander, William Hall Clawson
RP edition: RP (1916), p. 417; RPO 1997.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/13
Rhyme: ababcdcd
Other poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
