A (totally unprecedented) Valentine's Day Interlude...

My Lady Greensleeves - oil on canvas - 1863, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Lovesight

When do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
Before thy face, their altar, solemnize
The worship of that Love through thee made known?
Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,)
Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies
Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
And my soul only sees thy soul its own?
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?

Severed Selves

Two separate divided silences,
Which, brought together, would find loving voice;
Two glances which together would rejoice
In love, now lost like stars beyond dark trees;
Two hands apart whose touch alone gives ease;
Two bosoms which, heart-shrined with mutual flame,
Would, meeting in one clasp, be made the same;
Two souls, the shores wave-mocked of sundering seas:—
Such are we now. Ah! may our hope forecast
Indeed one hour again, when on this stream
Of darkened love once more the light shall gleam?—
An hour how slow to come, how quickly past,—
Which blooms and fades, and only leaves at last,
Faint as shed flowers, the attenuated dream.

Sudden Light

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.

You have been mine before,--
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turn'd so,
Some veil did fall,--I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death's despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?

***

... just for love.

______________________

All poems and images are by Pre-Raphaelite artist and poet, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (12 May, 1828 - 9 April, 1882). His poetry can be found here. The images (inset) from first to last:

• Bocca baciata (1859) - The title of the painting translates to "mouth that has been kissed" from an Italian proverb Rossetti had written on the back of this painting: Bocca baciata non perde ventura, anzi rinnova come fa la luna. (The mouth that has been kissed does not lose its savour, indeed it renews itself just as the moon does).
• Beata Beatrix (1870) - Rossetti was said to have modeled the subject of this painting after his deceased wife, Elizabeth Siddal (1829 -1862).
• How They Met Themselves (1851-1860) - a pen and ink version. There are also two watercolors of the same image (found on the linked page).