Dante Gabriel Rossetti Quotes (33 quotes)

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The House of Life

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: 33 quotes 0 likes

Famous Dante Gabriel Rossetti Quotes

“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

“Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life

A Superscription. Compare: "My name is might have been; my name is never was; my name's forgotten", Courtney Love (with Hole), "Celebrity Skin".
Source: The House of Life (1870—1881)

“Your eyes smile peace.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

“Places that are empty of you are empty of life.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

“Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life

Heart's Compass.
The House of Life (1870—1881)

“And Love, our light at night and shade at noon,
Lulls us to rest with songs, and turns away
All shafts of shelterless tumultuous day.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life

Heart's Haven.
The House of Life (1870—1881)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Quotes about the soul

“Each hour until we meet is as a bird
That wings from far his gradual way along
The rustling covert of my soul.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life

Winged Hours.
The House of Life (1870—1881)

“Around her, lovers, newly met
'Mid deathless love's acclaims,
Spoke evermore among themselves
Their heart-remember'd names;
And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Stanza 7.
The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)

“Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me;
Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.
Miles and miles distant though the last line be,
And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,—
Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Choice
Context: Nay, come up hither. From this wave-wash'd mound
Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me;
Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.
Miles and miles distant though the last line be,
And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,—
Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.

“A Sonnet is a moment's monument,—
Memorial from the Soul's eternity
To one dead deathless hour.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life

Introductory Sonnet.
The House of Life (1870—1881)

“Thou fill'st from the wingèd chalice of the soul
Thy lamp, O Memory, fire-wingèd to its goal.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Mnemosyne, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Even as the moon grows queenlier in mid-space
When the sky darkens, and her cloud-rapt car
Thrills with intenser radiance from afar,—
So lambent, lady, beams thy sovereign grace
When the drear soul desires thee.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life

Gracious Moonlight.
The House of Life (1870—1881)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Quotes about God

“Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth: can I
Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath
Even at this moment haply quickeneth
The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh
Though screen'd and hid, shall walk the daylight here.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Choice

“If God in his wisdom have brought close
The day when I must die,
That day by water or fire or air
My feet shall fall in the destined snare
Wherever my road may lie.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The King's Tragedy, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“We two will stand beside that shrine,
Occult, withheld, untrod,
Whose lamps are stirr'd continually
With prayer sent up to God;
And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)

“If the light is
It is because God said 'Let there be light.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

At Sunrise, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Quotes

“The sun was gone now; the curl'd moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)

Star , Sun , Weather

“When all desire at last and all regret
Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain,
What shall assuage the unforgotten pain
And teach the unforgetful to forget?”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life

Newborn Death.
The House of Life (1870—1881)

Death , Pain , Forgetting

“Now kiss, and think that there are really those,
My own high-bosom'd beauty, who increase
Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way!
Through many years they toil; then on a day
They die not, — for their life was death, — but cease;
And round their narrow lips the mould falls close.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Choice

Life , Death , Beauty , Way

“Still we say as we go,—
"Strange to think by the way
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day."”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Cloud Confines, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Way , Thinking

“I am not as these are, the poet saith
In youth's pride, and the painter, among men
At bay, where never pencil comes nor pem”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

from Not As These in The House of Life 1870 kindle ebook ASIN B0082R81E8

Men , Youth

“Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Choice
Context: Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die
Outstretch'd in the sun's warmth upon the shore,
Thou say'st: "Man's measur'd path is all gone o'er:
Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh,
Man clomb until he touch'd the truth; and I,
Even I, am he whom it was destin'd for."
How should this be? Art thou then so much more
Than they who sow'd, that thou shouldst reap thereby?

Thinking

“Was it a friend or foe that spread these lies?
Nay, who but infants question in such wise,
'T was one of my most intimate enemies.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Fragment, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Question

“Eat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die.
Surely the earth, that's wise being very old,
Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold
Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I
May pour for thee this golden wine, brim-high,
Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold.
We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd,
Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Choice

Love , Drink , Wine , Change

“Gather a shell from the strewn beach
And listen at its lips: they sigh
The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea's speech.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Sea-Limits, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "I send thee a shell from the ocean-beach; But listen thou well, for my shell hath speech. Hold to thine ear / And plain thou'lt hear / Tales of ships", Charles Henry Webb, With a Nantucket Shell; The hollow sea-shell, which for years hath stood / On dusty shelves, when held against the ear / Proclaims its stormy parent, and we hear / The faint, far murmur of the breaking flood. / We hear the sea. The Sea? It is the blood / In our own veins, impetuous and near", Eugene Lee-Hamilton, Sonnet. Sea-shell Murmurs'.

Sea

“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.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Sudden Light http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/roset03.html#1, st. 1 (1881).

Light , Grass

“From the fix'd place of Heaven she saw
Time like a pulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce
Its path; and now she spoke as when
The stars sang in their spheres.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)

World , Star , Time

“The blessed damozel lean'd out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters still'd at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Stanza 1.
The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)